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THE LITTLE COLONEL’S HOUSE PARTY 


"Works of 

Annie Fellows -Johnston 

& 

The Little Colonel 

Two Little Knights of Kentucky 

Big Brother 

Ole Mammy's Torment 

The Gate of the Giant Scissors 

The Story of Dago 

The Little Colonel's House Party 

£ 

L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY 

(Incorporated) 

212 Summer St., Boston, Mass. 








“MALCOLM WENT ON CUTTING.” 



/ 

v 


J 


) 


{See page 137.) 




CONTENTS, 


CHAPTER 

I. 

The Invitations Are Sent 

■* # 


PAGE 

I I 

II. 

“One Flew into the Cuckoo’s Nest” 


2 5 

III. 

“ One Flew East ” 

. . 


39 

IV. 

“One Flew West” 

. . 


50 

V. 

Betty Reaches the “ House 

Beautiful 

» 

62 

VI. 

The Enchanted Necklace 

. . 


81 

VII. 

Bits from Betty’s Diary . 

. 


96 

VIII. 

The Gypsy Fortune-teller 

. . 


no 

IX. 

Her Sacred Promise . 

. . 


128 

X. 

Found Out .... 

. 


150 

XI. 

Some Stories and a Poem . 

• • 


171 

XII. 

A Pillow - case Party . 

. 


189 

XIII. 

More Measles 

. 


205 

XIV. 

A Long Night 

• • 


216 

XV. 

“ The Road of the Loving Heart ” . 


233 

XVI. 

A Feast of Lanterns. 

. 


248 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

“ Malcolm went on cutting ” . . . Frontispiece 

“‘Oh, run and get it, quick, Davy,’ she cried” 35 

“ She sorted the ribbons and examined the 

gloves ” 59 

“ Betty began the story ” 83 

“ ‘ I’m glad that I don’t have to live in the 

COUNTRY THE YEAR ROUND!”’ . . . . IIO 

“There was one wild scream after another” . 167 

“ ‘ But we caught the chickens and brought 

them back’” 228 

“‘Let’s all sit down on the steps’” . . . 255 



THE LITTLE COLONEL’S HOUSE 
PARTY. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE INVITATIONS ARE SENT. 

Down the long avenue that led from the house to 
the great entrance gate came the Little Colonel on 
her pony. It was a sweet, white way that morning, 
filled with the breath of the locusts ; white overhead 
where the giant trees locked branches to make an 
arch of bloom nearly a gjiarter of a mile in length, 
and white underneath where the fallen blossoms lay 
like scattered snowflakes along the path. , 

Everybody in Lloydsboro Valley knew Locust. 
“It is one of the prettiest places in all Kentucky,” 
they were fond of saying, and every visitor to the 
Valley was taken past the great entrance gate to 
admire the long rows of stately old trees, and 


12 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

the great stone house at the end, whose pillars 
gleamed white through the Virginia creeper that 
nearly covered it. 

Everybody knew old Colonel Lloyd, too, the owner 
of the place. He also was often pointed out to the 
summer visitors. Some people called attention to 
him because he was an old Confederate soldier who 
had given his good right arm to the cause he loved, 
some because they thought he resembled Napoleon, 
and others because they had some amusing tale to 
tell of the eccentric things he had said or done. 

Nearly every one who pointed out the imposing 
figure, which was clad always in white duck or linen 
in the summer, and wrapped in a picturesque military 
cape in winter, added the remark : “ And he is the 
Little Colonel’s grandfather.” To be the grand- 
father of such an attractive little bunch of mischief 
as Lloyd Sherman was when she first came to the 
Valley was a distinction of which any man might 
well be proud, and Colonel Lloyd was proud of it. 
He was proud of the fact that she had inherited his 
lordly manner, his hot temper, and imperious ways. 
It pleased him that people had given her his title 
of Colonel on account of the resemblance to himself. 
She had outgrown it somewhat since she had first 
been nicknamed the Little Colonel. Then she was 


THE INVITATIONS ARE SENT 1 3 

only a spoiled baby of five ; but now his pride in her 
was even greater, since she had grown into a womanly 
little maid of eleven. He was proud of her delicate, 
flower-like beauty, of her dainty ways, and all her 
little schoolgirl accomplishments. 

“ She is like those who have gone before,” he used 
to say to himself sometimes, pacing slowly back 
and forth under the locusts ; and the bloom-tipped 
branches above would nod to each other as if they 
understood. “Yes-s, yes-s,” they whispered in the 
soft lisping language of the leaves, “ we know ! She’s 
like Amanthis, — sweet-souled and starry-eyed ; we 
were here when you brought her home, a bride. 
She’s like Amanthis ! Like Amanthis ! ” 

Under the blossoms rode the Little Colonel, all in 
white herself this May morning, except the little 
Napoleon hat of black velvet, set jauntily over her 
short light hair. Into the cockade she had stuck 
a spray of locust blossoms, and as she rode slowly 
along she fastened a bunch of them behind each ear 
of her pony, whose coat was as soft and black as the 
velvet of her hat. “Tarbaby” she called him, 
partly because he was so black, and partly because 
that was the name of her favourite Uncle Remus 
story. 

“ There ! ” she exclaimed, when the flowers were 


14 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

fastened to her satisfaction. “Yo’ lookin’ mighty 
fine this mawnin’, Tarbaby ! Maybe I’ll take you 
visitin’ aftah I’ve been to the post-office and mailed 
these lettahs. You didn’t know that Judge Moore’s 
place is open for the summah, did you, and that all 
the family came out yesta’day ? Well, they did, and 
if Bobby Moore isn’t ovah to my house by the time 
we get back home, we’ll go ovah to Bobby’s.” 

As she spoke, she passed through the gate at the 
end of the avenue and turned into the public road, 
a wide pike with a railroad track on one side of it 
and a bridle-path on the other. Two minutes’ brisk 
canter brought her to another gate, one that had 
been closed all winter, and one that she was greatly 
interested in, because it led to Judge Moore’s house. 
Judge Moore was Rob’s grandfather, and she and 
Rob had played together every summer since she 
could remember. 

The wide white gate was standing open now, and 
she drew rein, peering anxiously in. She hoped for 
the sight of a familiar freckled face or the sound of 
a welcoming whoop. But it was so still everywhere 
that all she saw was the squirrels playing hide and 
seek in the beech-grove around the house, and all 
she heard was the fearless cry, “ Pewee ! pewee ! ” of 
a little bird perched in a tree overarching the gate. 


THE INVITATIONS ARE SENT 1 5 

It balanced itself on the limb, leaning over and cock- 
ing its bright bead-like eyes at her, as if admiring the 
sight. 

What it saw was a slender girl of eleven, taller 
than most children of that age, and more graceful. 
There was a colour in her cheek like the delicate 
pink of a wild rose, and the big hazel eyes had a 
roguish twinkle in them, as they looked out fearlessly 
on the world from under the little Napoleon hat with 
its nodding cockade of locust blossoms. 

“ There’s nobody in sight, Tarbaby,” said the Little 
Colonel, “and there isn’t time to go in befo’ we’ve 
been to the post-office, so we might as well be trav- 
ellin’ on.” 

She was turning slowly away when down the pike 
behind her came the quick beat of a horse’s hoofs 
and a shrill whistle. A twelve-year-old boy was 
riding toward her as fast as his big gray horse could 
carry him. He was riding bareback, straight and 
lithe as a young Indian, his cap pushed to the back 
of his head. He snatched it off with a flourish as he 
came within speaking distance of the Little Colonel, 
his freckled face all ashine with pleasure. 

“Hello! Lloyd,” he called, “I was just going to 
your house.” 

“ And I was looking for you, Bobby,” she an- 


1 6 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

swered, as informally as if it were only yesterday they 
had parted, instead of eight months before. 

“ Come and go down to the post-office with me. 
I must take these lettahs.” 

“All right,” said Rob, wheeling the gray horse 
around beside the black pony, and smiling broadly 
as he looked down into the Little Colonel’s welcoming 
eyes. “You don’t know how good it feels to get 
back to the country again, Lloyd. I could hardly 
wait for school to close, when I’d think about the 
fish waiting for me out here in the creek, and the 
wild strawberries getting ripe, and the horses just 
spoiling to be exercised. It was more than I could 
stand. What have you been doing all winter ? ” 

“ Oh, the same old things : school and music les- 
sons, and good times in the evenin’ with mothah and 
papa Jack and grandfathah.” 

As they jogged along, side by side, the Little 
Colonel chatting gaily of all that had happened since 
their last meeting, Rob kept casting curious glances 
at her. “What have you been doing to yourself, 
Lloyd Sherman ? ” he demanded, finally. “ You look 
so — so different /” There was such a puzzled ex- 
pression in his sharp gray eyes that the Little Colonel 
laughed. Then her hand flew up to her head. 

“ Don’t you see ? I’ve had my hair cut. I had to 


THE INVITATIONS ARE SENT 1? 

beg and beg befo’ mothah and papa Jack would let 
me have it done ; but it was so long, — away below 
my waist, — and such a bothah. It had to be brushed 
and plaited a dozen times a day.” 

“ I don’t like it that way. It isn’t a bit becoming,” 
said Rob, with the frankness of old comradeship. 
“ You look like a boy. Why, it is as short as mine.” 

“ I don’t care,” answered Lloyd, her eyes flashing 
dangerously. “ It’s comfortable this way, and grand- 
fathah likes it. He says he’s got his Little Colonel 
back again now, and he sent to town for this Napo- 
leon hat like the ones I used to weah when I was a 
little thing.” 

“When you were a little thing!” laughed Rob, 
teasingly. “ What do you think you are now, missy ? 
You’re head and shoulders shorter than I am.” 

“I’m eleven yeahs old, anyway, I’d have you to 
undahstand, Bobby Moore,” answered the Little 
Colonel, with such dignity that Rob wished he hadn’t 
spoken. “I was eleven last week. That was one 
of my birthday presents, havin’ my own way about 
cuttin’ my hair, and anothah was the house pahty. 
Oh, you don’t know anything about the house 
pahty I’m to have in June, do you ! ” she cried, 
every trace of displeasure vanishing at the thought. 
“ Grandfathah and papa Jack are goin’ away fo’ a 


1 8 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

month to some mineral springs in Va’ginia, and I’m to 
have my house pahty in June to keep mothah and me 
from bein’ lonesome. It will not be a very big one, 
only three girls to spend June with me, but mothah 
says we can have picnics every day if we want to, 
and invite all the boys and girls in the Valley, and 
we can have the house full from mawnin’ till night. 
I’ll invite you right now for every day that you want 
to come. We’ll expect you at all the pahties and 
picnics and candy-pullin’ s that we have. I want you 
to help me give the girls a good time, Bobby.” 

Rob whirled his cap around his head with a 
“ Whe-ew ! Jolly for you ! ” before he answered more 
politely, “Thank you, Lloyd, you can count on me 
for my part. I’ll be on hand every time you turn 
around, if you want me. Who all’s coming ? ” 

For answer Lloyd h^ld up the three letters she 
was carrying, and let him see the first address, writ- 
ten in Mrs. Sherman’s flowing hand. 

Miss Eugenia Forbes y 

The Waldorf- As toriay 

New York City . 

“ Well, who is she ? ” he asked, reading it aloud. 

“ Eugenia is a sort of cousin of mine,” explained 
Lloyd. “At least her fathah and my fathah are 


THE INVITATIONS ARE SENT. 1 9 

related in some way. I used to know her when we 
lived in New York, but I haven’t seen her since we 
left. I was five then and she was seven, so she must 
be neahly thirteen yeahs old now. When we played 
togethah she would scream and scream if I didn’t 
give up to her in everything, and as I had a bad tem- 
pah, too, we were always fussin’. She was dreadfully 
spoiled. I’ll nevah fo’get how my hand bled one 
day when she bit it, or how she clawed my face till 
it looked as if a tigah had scratched it.” 

“ Then what did you do ? ” asked Rob, with a grin. 
He had experimented with Lloyd’s temper himself in 
the past. 

“ I believe that that was the time I pounded her 
on the back with my little red chair,” answered 
Lloyd, laughing at the recollection. “Or maybe it 
was the time I banged her ovah the head with a toy 
teakettle. I remembah I did both those bad things, 
and that we were always in trouble whenevah we 
were togethah. I didn’t want mothah to invite her, 
but she said she felt that we ought to. Eugenia’s 
mothah is dead. She died three yeahs ago, and since 
then she’s been kept in a boa’din’ school most of the 
time. When she’s not away at school she stays in 
some big hotel with her fathah, eithah in New York 
or at some summah resort. He is always so busy 


20 THE LITTLE CO LONE VS HOUSE PARTY. 

there’s no one to pay any attention to her but her 
maid. They are very wealthy, and Eugenia has had 
the best of everything so long that I’m afraid she’ll 
find the Valley dreadfully poah and poky. I imag- 
ine she’s stuck up, too. She used to be, and she’s 
always had her own way about everything.” 

“Number one doesn’t sound very inviting,” said 
Rob, with a sour grimace. “ Who is your number 
two ? ” Lloyd held out the second envelope. 

Miss Joyce Ware , 

Plainsville , 

Kansas. 

" I nevah saw her,” said Lloyd, “ but I feel as if we 
had always been old friends. Her mothah and mine 
used to go to school togethah heah in Lloydsboro 
Valley at the Girls’ College, and they’ve written to 
each othah once a month for fifteen yeahs. Mrs. 
Ware is a widow now, and they have ha’d times, for 
they are poah, and she has foah children youngah 
than Joyce. But Joyce has had lots of things that 
neithah Eugenia nor I have had. Last yeah her 
cousin Kate took her abroad with her, and she stud- 
ied French, and she had lots of beautiful times where 
they spent the wintah in France. Mrs. Ware sent 
some of the lettahs to mothah that Joyce wrote. 


THE INVITATIONS ARE SENT. 


21 


One was about a Christmas tree that they gave to 
thirty little peasant children, — and so many queer 
things happened behind a gate that they called the 
‘ Gate of the Giant Scissahs,’ because there was a 
pair of enormous scissahs hanging ovah it, you know. 
Oh, it was just like a fairy tale, all the things that 
Joyce did when she was in Touraine.” 

“How old is she ? ” interrupted Rob. 

“Just Eugenia’s age, I believe, and she must be 
an interestin’ sort of girl, for she draws beautifully. 
Mothah says that her sketches are fine, and that 
Joyce will be a real artist when she is grown.” 

“Number two is all right,” said Rob, with an 
approving nod. “ Next ! ” The Little Colonel held 
out the third envelope. 

“One flew east and one flew west, so I s’pose 
this will fly into the cuckoo’s nest,” said Rob, as he 
read the address : 

Miss Elizabeth Lloyd Lewis , 

Jaynes's Post-office , 

Kentucky. 

“Why, that’s just what mothah calls the place,” 
cried the Little Colonel, “ the cuckoo’s nest ! She 
says that the cuckoo is the most careless bird in the 
world about the way it builds its nest. They weave 


22 THE LITTLE CO LONE US HOUSE PARTY. 

a few twigs and sticks togethah just in any kind 
of way, and nevah mind a bit if their poah little 
young ones fall out of the nest. They seem to think 
that any kind of home is good enough, and that is 
the kind of a home that Elizabeth Lewis has. She 
is a poah little orphan, and is livin’ on a farm up 
Green Rivah. Mother is her godmothah. That’s 
why she is named Elizabeth Lloyd. Mrs. Lewis was 
an old school friend of mothah’s, too, and she wants 
Joyce and Elizabeth and me to be as deah friends as 
she and Emily Ware and Joyce Lewis were, she says. 
That’s why she invited them.” 

“ And you don’t know anything about this one ? ” 
questioned Rob. 

“Not a thing. I shouldn’t be su’prised if she’s 
mighty countrified, for the farm is several miles 
from a railroad, and the people she lives with don’t 
think of anything but work, yeah in and yeah 
out.” 

They had reached the post-office by this time, 
and Rob held out his hand for the letters. “I’ll 
put them in for you,” he said. Then, dropping 
them into the box, one by one, he repeated the 
rhyme : 

“ One flew east and one flew west, 

And one flew into the cuckoo’s nest.” 


THE INVITATIONS ARE SENT. 23 

Lloyd added, quickly : 

“ Rugenia, Joyce, or Elizabeth, 

Which of the three shall we like best ? ” 

“ Joyce, ’\said Rob, promptly. 

“ I think so, too,” agreed the Little Colonel, stoop- 
ing to fasten the locust blossoms more securely be- 
hind the pony’s ears. 

“Well, the invitations are off now. Come on, 
Tarbaby, and see if you can’t beat Bobby Moore’s 
old gray hawse so bad it will be ashamed to evah 
race again.” 

With that the little black pony was off like an 
arrow toward Locust, with the big gray horse thun- 
dering hard at its heels. 

The dust flew, dogs barked, and chickens ran 
squawking across the road out of the way. Heads 
were thrust out of the windows as the two vanished 
up the dusty pike, and an old graybeard loafing in 
front of the corner grocery gave an amused chuckle. 
“Beats all how them two do get over the ground,” 
he said. “They ride like Tam O’Shanter, and I’ll 
bet a quarter there’s nothing on earth that either of 
’em are afraid of.” 

A little while later the three white envelopes were 
jogging sociably along, side by side in a mail-bag, 


24 the little colonels house party. 

on their way to Louisville. But their course did not 
lie together long. In the city post-office they were 
separated, and sent on their different ways, like three 
white carrier-pigeons, to bid the guests make ready 
for the Little Colonel’s house party. 


CHAPTER II. 


“ONE FLEW INTO THE CUCKOO’S NEST.” 

The letter for Jaynes’s Post-office reached the end 
of its journey first. It wasn’t much of a post-office ; 
only an old case of pigeon-holes set up in one corner 
of a cross-roads store. A man riding over from the 
nearest town twice a week brought the mail-bag on 
horseback. So few letters found their way into this 
particular bag that Squire Jaynes, who kept the store 
and post-office, felt a personal interest in every 
envelope that passed through his hands. 

“Miss Elizabeth Lloyd Lewis,” he spelled aloud, 
examining the address through his square-bowed 
spectacles with a critical squint. “Now, who under 
the canopy might she be ? ” 

There was no one in the store to answer the ques- 
tion but an overgrown boy who had stopped to get 
his father’s weekly paper. He sat on the counter 
dangling his big bare feet against a nail-keg, and 
catching flies in his sunburned hands, while he 
waited for the mail to be opened. 


25 


26 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

The squire peered inquiringly at him over the 
square-bowed spectacles. “ Jake,” he asked, “ ever 
hear tell of a Miss Elizabeth Lloyd Lewis up this 
way ? ” 

“Wy, sure!” drawled the boy. “That’s Betty. 
The Appletons’ Betty. Don’t you know ? She’s that 
little orphan they’re a-bringin’ up. I worked there 
a while this spring, a-plowin’.” 

“ Hump ! ” grunted the squire, slipping the letter 
into the pigeon-hole marked “A.” “If that’s who 
it is, I know all about her. Precious little bringing 
up she’ll get at the Appletons’, I can tell you that. 
They keep her because they’re her nearest of living 
kin, which isn’t very near, after all ; fourth or fifth 
cousins to her father, or something like that. Any- 
how, they’re all she’s got, and her father made some 
arrangement with them before he died. Left a little 
money to pay her board, they say, but I’ve heard she 
works just the same as if she was living on charity.” 

“That’s the truth,” said Jake; “ she does. Talk 
about bringin' up. She doesn’t get any of it. Mrs. 
Appleton has her hands so full of cookin’ for farm 
hands and all, that she can’t half tend to her own 
children, let alone anybody else’s. It’s Betty that 
’pears to be bringin’ up the little Appletons.” 

“ I’m glad there’s somebody takes enough interest 


“ ONE FLEW INTO THE CUCKOO'S NEST" 27 

in the child to write to her,” continued the gossipy 
old squire, who often talked to himself when he 
could find no other audience. “ I wonder who it 
is. Lloydsboro Valley it’s postmarked. Wish she’d 
happen down here. I’d ask her who it’s from.” 

Jake got up, dragged his bare feet across the floor, 
and leaned lazily on the counter as he reached for his 
paper. 

“ Little Betty will be mighty proud to get a real 
shore ’nuff letter all for herself. I never got one in 
my life. I’ll take it up to her, squire, if you say so. 
I’m goin’ by the Appletons’ on my way home.” 

“ Reckon you might as well,” answered the old 
man, giving a final close scrutiny before handing it 
to the boy. “ It might lie here all week in case none 
of them happened to come to the store, and it looks 
as if it might be important.” 

Jake slipped the letter into the band of his broad- 
brimmed straw hat and slouched lazily out of the 
store. An old blaze-faced sorrel horse whinnied as 
he stepped up to untie it. Jake mounted and rode 
off slowly, his bare feet dangling far below the 
stirrups. It was two miles to the Appleton farm, 
down a hot, dusty road, and he took his time in go- 
ing. Well for little Betty that she did not know 
what wonderful surprise was on its way to her, or 


28 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

she would have been in a fever of impatience for the 
letter to arrive. 

It had been a tiresome day for the child. Up 
before five, in her bare little room in the west gable, 
busy with morning chores until breakfast was ready, 
she had earned a rest long before the Little Colonel’s 
day had begun. Afterward she had helped with 
the breakfast dishes and had taken her turn at 
the butter-making in the spring-house, thumping the 
heavy dasher up and down in the cedar churn until 
her arms ached. But it was cool and pleasant down 
in the spring-house with the water trickling out in a 
ceaseless drip-drip on the cold stones. She dabbled 
her fingers in the spring for a long time when the 
churning was done, wishing she had nothing to do 
but sit there and listen to the secrets it was trying 
to tell. Surely it must have learned a great many on 
its underground way among the roots of things, and 
all else that lies hidden in the earth. 

But she could not loiter long. There was the 
dinner-table to set for the hungry farm-hands, and 
after the dinner was over more dishes to wash. Then 
there were some towels to iron. It was two o’clock 
before her work was all done, and she had time to go 
up to her little room in the west gable. 

The sun poured in through the shutterless win- 


“ ONE FLEW INTO THE CUCKOO'S NEST." 29 

dows so fiercely that she did not stay long, — only 
long enough to put on a clean apron and brush her 
curly hair, as she stood in front of the little looking- 
glass. It was such a tiny mirror that she could see 
only a part of her face at a time. When her big 
brown eyes, wistful and questioning as a fawn’s, were 
reflected in it, there was no room for the sensitive 
little mouth. Or if she stood on tiptoe so that she 
could see her plump round chin, dimpled cheeks, and 
white teeth, the eyes were left out, and she could see 
no more of her inquisitive little nose than lay below 
the big freckle in the middle of it. 

Hastily tying back her curls with a bow of brown 
ribbon, she slipped on her apron, and ran down-stairs, 
buttoning it as she went. She was free now to do as 
she pleased until supper-time. Once out of the house, 
she walked slowly along through the shady orchard, 
swinging her sunbonnet by the strings. After the 
orchard came the long leafy lane, with its double 
rows of cherry-trees, and then the gate at the end, 
leading into the public highway. 

As she slipped her hand around the post to un- 
fasten the chain that held the gate, little bare feet 
came pattering behind her, and a shrill voice called : 
“ Wait, Betty, wait a minute ! ” It was Davy Apple- 
ton. Betty’s little lamb, they called him, and Betty’s 


30 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

shadow, and Betty’s sticking-plaster, because every- 
where she went there was Davy just at her heels. 

All the Appleton children were boys, — three 
younger and two older than Davy, whose last 
birthday cake should have had eight candles if 
there had been any celebration of the event. But 
there never had been a birthday cake with candles 
on it on the Appleton table. It would have been 
considered a foolish waste of time and money, and 
birthdays came and went sometimes, without the 
children knowing that they had passed. 

Davy was a queer little fellow. He tagged along 
after Betty, switching at the grass with a whip he 
carried, never saying a word after that first eager 
call for her to wait. The two never tired of each 
other. He was content to follow and ask no ques- 
tions, for he had learned long ago to look twice 
before he spoke once. As he caught up with her at 
the gate, he did not even ask where she was going, 
knowing that he would find out in due time if he only 
followed far enough. 

He did not have to follow far to-day. Betty led 
the way across the road to a plain little wooden 
church, set back in a grove of cedar-trees. Behind 
the church was a graveyard, where they often strolled 
on summer afternoons, through the tangle of grass 


“ ONE FLEW INTO THE CUCKOO'S NEST.” 31 

and weeds and myrtle vines, to read the names on 
the tombstones and smell the pinks and lilies that 
struggled up year after year above the neglected 
mounds. But that was not their errand to-day. A 
little red bookcase inside the church was the attrac- 
tion. Betty had only lately discovered it, although 
it had stood for years on a back bench in a cob- 
webby corner. 

It held all that was left of a scattered Sunday- 
school library, that had been in use two generations 
before. Queer little books they were, time-yellowed 
and musty smelling, but to story-loving little Betty, 
hungry for something new, they seemed a veritable 
gold-mine. She had found that no key barred her 
way into this little red treasure-house of a bookcase, 
and a board propped against the wall under the win- 
dow outside gave her an easy entrance into the 
church. Here she came day after day, when her 
work was done, to pore over the musty old volumes 
of tales forgotten long ago. 

In Betty’s little room under the roof at home was 
a pile of handsomely bound books, lying on a chest 
beside her mother’s Bible. They were twelve in all, 
and had come in several different Christmas boxes, 
and each one had Betty’s name on the fly-leaf, with 
the date of the Christmas on which it happened to 


32 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

be sent. Underneath was always written: “From 
your loving godmother, Elizabeth Lloyd Sherman.” 

Excepting a few school-books and some out-of-date 
census reports, they were the only books in the 
Appleton house. Betty guarded them like a little 
dragon. They were the only things she owned that 
the children were not allowed to touch. Even Davy, 
when he was permitted to look at the wonderful pic- 
tures in her “ Arabian Nights,” or “ Pilgrim’s Prog- 
ress,” or “ Mother Goose,” had to sit with his hands 
behind his back while she carefully turned the leaves. 
Besides these three, there was “ Alice in Wonderland,” 
and “ ALsop’s Fab]es,” there was “ Robinson Crusoe,” 
and “ Little Women,” and two volumes of fairy tales in 
green and gold with a gorgeous peacock on the cover. 
Eugene Field’s poems had come in the last box, with 
Riley’s “ Songs of Childhood” and Kipling’s jungle 
tales. Twelve beautiful books, all of Mrs. Sherman’s 
giving, and they were like twelve great windows to 
Betty, opening into a new strange world, far away 
from the experiences of her every-day life. 

She had read them over and over so many times 
that she always knew what was coming next, even 
before she turned the page ; and she had read them to 
the other children so many times that they, too, knew 
them almost by heart. 


‘ HE FLEW INTO THE CUCKOO'S NEST ” 33 

The little dog-eared books in the meeting-house 
proved poor reading sometimes after such entertain- 
ment. So many of them were about unnaturally 
good children who never did wrong, and unnaturally 
bad children who never did right. At the end there 
was always the word MORAL, in big capital letters, 
as if the readers were supposed to be too blind to find 
it for themselves, and it had to be put directly across 
the path for them to stumble over. 

Betty laughed at them sometimes, but she touched 
the little books with reverent fingers, when she 
remembered how old they were, and how long ago 
their first childish readers laid them aside. The 
hands that had held them first had years before 
grown tired and wrinkled and old, and had been lying 
for a generation under the myrtle and lilies of the 
churchyard outside. 

Many an afternoon she had spent, perched in 
the high window, with her feet drawn up under her 
on the sill, reading aloud to Davy, who lay outside 
on the grass, staring up at the sky. Davy’s short 
fat legs could not climb from the board to the 
window-sill, and since this little Mahomet could 
not come to the mountain, Betty had to carry the 
mountain to him. 

The reading was slow work sometimes. Davy’s 


34 THE little colonels house party. 

mind, like his legs, could not climb as far as Betty’s, 
and she usually had to stop at the bottom of every 
page to explain something. Often he fell asleep in 
the middle of the most interesting part, and then 
Betty read on to herself, with nothing to break the 
stillness around her but the buzzing of the wasps, as 
they darted angrily in and out of the open window 
above her head. 

To-day Betty had read nearly an hour, and Davy’s 
eyelids were beginning to flutter drowsily, when they 
heard the slow thud of a horse’s hoofs in the thick 
dust of the road. Betty stopped reading to listen, 
and Davy sat up to look. 

“ It’s Jake,” he announced, recognising the boy 
who had helped his father with the ploughing. 

“ Hope he won’t see us,” said Betty, in a low tone, 
drawing in her head. “ We are not hurting anything, 
but maybe some of the church people wouldn’t like 
it, if they knew I climbed in at the window. They 
might think it wasn’t respectful.” 

“ He’s looking this way,” said Davy, who had stood 
up for a better view, but squatted down again at 
Betty’s command. 

It was too late. Jake had recognised Davy’s shock 
of yellow hair, and called out, good-naturedly, “ Hello, 
stickin’-plaster, where’s Betty ? Somewhere around 


“ ONE FLEW INTO THE CUCKOO'S NEST” 35 

here, I’ll bet anything, or you wouldn’t be here. I’ve 
got a letter for her.” 

At that, Betty leaned so far out of the window that 
she nearly lost her balance and toppled over. “ Oh, 
run and get it, quick, Davy,” she cried. The little 
bare feet twinkled through the grass to meet the old 
sorrel horse, and two brown hands were held up to 
receive the letter ; but Jake preferred to deliver the 
important document himself. 

“ Here you are,” he said, riding alongside the win- 
dow and dropping the letter into her eager hands. 

“ Oh, thank you, Jake,” she cried. “ It makes me 
feel as if Christmas was coming. I never got a letter 
in my life except in my Christmas boxes. My god- 
mother always writes to me then, and this must be 
from her, too. Yes, it is, I know her handwriting.” 

If Jake expected her to tear it open instantly and 
share the news with him before she had examined 
every inch of the big square envelope, he was dis- 
appointed. The old blaze-faced sorrel had carried 
him out of sight before she had finished cutting it 
open with a pin. Then she spread the letter out on 
her knees, drawing a long breath of pleasure as the 
faintest odour of violets floated up from the paper 
with its dainty monogram at the top. 

Davy waited in silence, watching a flush spread 


36 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

over Betty’s face as she read. Her breath came 
short and her heart beat fast. 

“Oh, Davy,” she exclaimed, in a low, wondering 
tone. “ What do you think ? It is an invitation to 
a house party at Locust ; Lloyd Sherman’s house 
party. Oh, it’s like a lovely, lovely fairy tale with 
me for the princess. I’ve never travelled on the cars 
since I was old enough to remember it, and they’ve 
sent passes for me to go. I’ve never had any girls 
to play with in all my life, and now there will be two 
besides Lloyd ; and, oh, Davy, best of all, I’ll see my 
beautiful, beautiful godmother! I shall be there a 
whole month, and she knew my mamma and was her 
dearest friend. I haven’t seen her since I was a 
baby, when she came to my christening, and of course 
I can’t remember anything about that.” 

Davy listened to her raptures without saying any- 
thing for awhile. Then he set aside his usual custom 
and asked a question. “ Why are you crying ? ” he 
demanded. “There’s a tear running down the side 
of your nose.” 

“Is there?” asked Betty, brushing it away with 
the back of her hand. “ I didn’t know it. Maybe 
it’s because I am so glad. It seems as if I was going 
back to my own family; to somebody who really 
belongs to you more than just fourth cousins, you 


“ONE FLEW INTO THE CUCKOO'S NEST” 37 

know. A godmother must be the next best thing to 
a real mother, you see, Davy, because it’s a mother 
that God gives you to take the place of your own, 
when she is gone. Oh, let’s hurry home and tell 
Cousin Hetty.” 

Slipping from the window-sill to the floor, she 
carried the book she had been reading back to its 
comer in the little red bookcase, and shut it up with 
the musty volumes inside. Then she walked slowly 
down the narrow aisle of the little meeting-house, 
between its double rows of narrow^ straight-backed 
pews. As she reached the bench-like altar, extend- 
ing in front of the pulpit, she slipped to her knees 
a moment. Her sunbonnet had fallen back from her 
tousled curls, and the late afternoon sun streamed 
across her shining little face. 

“ Thank you, God,” came in a happy whisper 
from the depths of a glad little heart. “ It’s the 
nicest surprise you ever sent me, and I’m so much 
obliged.” 

Then Betty stood up and put on her sunbonnet. 
The next moment she had scrambled over the sill, 
pulled the window down after her, and walked down 
the slanting board to the ground. Catching Davy by 
the hand, and swinging it back and forth as they ran, 
she went skipping across the road regardless of the 


38 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

dust. Down the lane they went, between the rows 
of cherry-trees ; across the orchard and up the path. 
Somehow the world had never before seemed half so 
beautiful to Betty as it did now. The May skies 
had never been quite so blue, or the afternoon sun- 
shine so heavenly golden. She sang as she went, 
swinging Davy’s warm little hand in hers. It was 
only one of Mother Goose’s old melodies, but she 
sang it as a bird sings, for sheer gladness : 

“ Gay go up and gay go down, 

To ring the bells of London town.” 


CHAPTER III. 


“ONE FLEW EAST.” 

The New York letter reached the hotel while 
Eugenia was out in the park with her maid, and the 
bell-boy brought it to her on a salver with several 
others, as she was stepping into the elevator to go up 
to her room. 

“ Here, take my gloves, Eliot ! ” she exclaimed, 
tossing them to the maid, and beginning to tear open 
the envelopes as soon as her hands were free. Eliot, 
a plain, middle-aged woman, with a patient face and 
slow gait, picked up the gloves, and followed her 
young mistress down the corridor. 

Eugenia dashed into her sitting-room, throwing 
herself into a big armchair, regardless of the fact 
that she was crushing the roses in her pretty new 
hat as she leaned her head against the high back. 
Three of the letters which she opened so eagerly 
were from the girls who had been her best friends at 
boarding-school. She had been away from River- 
dale Seminary only a week, but already she was 
39 


*40 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

homesick to go back. The school was a very select ^ 
one, and the rules were rigid, but Eugenia had known 
no other home for three years. 

In the great hotel where she was now, she saw 
her father only in the evenings, and during breakfast, 
and she always rebelled when she had to go back to 
it in vacation. There was so little she could do that 
she really enjoyed. There was a stupid round of 
drives and walks, shopping and piano practice, and 
after that nothing but to mope and fret and worry 
poor Eliot. At school there was always the excite- 
ment of evading some rule or breaking it without 
being caught ; and if there was no joke in prospect 
to giggle over, there was the memory of one just 
passed to make them laugh. And then there were 
always Mollie and Fay and Kit Keller — dear old 
“ Kell ” — ready to laugh or cry or lark with her any 
hour of the day or night, as it suited her mood. 

Only seven days of vacation had passed, but to 
Eugenia it seemed an age since the four had walked 
back and forth across the school campus, with their 
arms around each other, waiting for the ’bus that 
was to drive them to the station. 

The others were not so sorry to go, for they would 
be in the midst of their families. Mollie was to go 
to the mountains with all the members of her house- 


ONE FLEW EAST: 


41 


hold, Fay to an island in the St. Lawrence, where 
her family had their summer home, and Kell was 
going on a long yachting trip, maybe to the Ber- 
mudas. It would be September before they all met 
again. 

For Eugenia there was nothing in prospect but 
lonely days at the Waldorf, until her father could 
find time to take her down to the seashore for a few 
weeks. The tears were in her eyes when she laid 
down the three letters, after twice reading the one 
signed, “For ever your devoted old chum, Kell.” It 
had been full of the good times she was having at 
home. 

Eugenia looked around the elegantly furnished 
room with a discontented sigh. No girl in. the 
school had as much spending money as herself, 
or as wealthy and as indulgent a father, and yet 
— just at that moment — she felt herself the poor- 
est child in New York. There was one thing she 
lacked that even the poorest beggar had, she thought 
bitterly, — companionship. In a listless sort of way 
she picked up the remaining letter, postmarked 
Lloydsboro Valley, and began to read it. 

Eliot, who was busy in the adjoining room, heard 
an excited exclamation, and then the call, “ Oh, Eliot, 
Eliot! Come here, quick!” She was stooping over 


42 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

the bed inspecting some clean clothes that had been 
sent in from the laundry. Before she could straighten 
herself up to answer the call, her elbows were seized 
from behind, and Eugenia began waltzing her around 
backwards at a rate that made her head spin. 

“Dance! You giddy old thing!” cried Eugenia. 
“Whoop and make a noise and act as if you are 
glad! We are going to get out of our cage next 
week. I’m invited to a house party. We are to 
spend a whole month in a house , not a hotel. 
We’re going to be part of a real live family in a 
real sure enough home, — in an old Southern man- 
sion.” 

“ Goodness gracious, Miss Eugenia,” panted Eliot, 
as she staggered into a chair and settled her cap on 
her head. “You a’most scared me out of me five 
wits, you were that sudden in your movements. I 
thought for a bit as you had gone stark mad. You 
gave me quite a turn, you did.” 

Eugenia laughed. “ I had to let off steam in some 
way,” she said; “and really, Eliot, you can’t imagine 
how glad I am. They’re cousins of papa’s, you 
know, the Shermans are. I used to know Lloyd 
when they lived in New York. We played together 
every day, and fussed — my eyes, how we fussed ! 
But that was before she could talk plain, and she 


ONE FLEW EAST: 


43 


must be eleven now, for she’s about two years 
younger than I am.” 

Perching herself on the bed among piles of snowy 
linen, Eugenia clasped her hands around her knees 
and began to tell all she could remember of the 
Little Colonel. Because there was no one else to 
confide in, she confided in the maid. Patient old 
Eliot listened to much family history that did not 
interest her and which she immediately forgot, and 
to many girlish rhapsodies over “ Cousin Elizabeth,” 
whom Eugenia declared was the dearest thing that 
ever drew the breath of life. 

As Eugenia talked on, idly rocking herself back 
and forth on the bed, Eliot sorted the linen with deft 
fingers, laying some of it away in drawers, sweet with 
dainty sachets, and putting some aside that needed a 
stitch or two. Presently, as she listened, she found 
herself taking more interest in the country place that 
Eugenia described than in anything she had heard 
of since she said good-bye to her dear little cottage 
home in England. She began to hope that Mr. 
Forbes would consent to Eugenia’s accepting the 
invitation, and expressed that wish to Eugenia. 

“Why, of course I am going ! ” exclaimed Eugenia, 
in surprise. “ Whether papa wants me to or not ! 
I shall answer Cousin Elizabeth’s letter this very 


44 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

minute and accept the invitation before he comes 
home. Then if he makes a fuss it will be too 
late, and I can tease him into a good humour.” 

Bouncing off the bed, she went back to the sitting- 
room and sat down at her desk. When that letter 
was written, carefully, and in her best style, she 
dashed off three notes in an almost unreadable 
scrawl, to Mollie and Fay and Kell, telling them of 
her invitation and the delight it gave her. Then she 
wandered back to the bedroom where Eliot sat mend- 
ing, and wandered restlessly around the room. 

“ How slow the time goes,” she exclaimed, pausing 
in front of the mantel. “ Two hours until papa will 
be here. I want to tell him about it, and ask for 
some more money. I need an extra allowance 
for this visit.” 

There was a little Dresden clock on the mantel ; 
two cupids holding up a flower basket, from which 
swung a spray of roses that formed the pendulum. 

“Two long hours,” she fumed, scowling at the 
clock. “ Hurry up, you old slow-poke,” she cried, 
catching up the fragile little timepiece and shaking it 
until the pendulum rattled against the cupids’ plump 
legs. “ I can’t bear to wait for things.” 

“ But life is mostly waiting, miss,” said Eliot, with 
a solemn shake of her head. “ You’ll find that out 


“ ONE FLEW EAST: 


45 


when you are as old as I am. We wait for this and 
we wait for that, and first thing we know the years 
are gone, and we are standing with one foot in the 
grave, waiting for Death to lift us in.” 

Eugenia put her hands over her ears with a little 
scream. “ Stop talking like that, Eliot,” she cried. 
“ I won’t listen, and I won’t spend my life waiting in 
that way. You may if you want to.” 

Running back to her sitting-room, she banged the 
door behind her to shut out the sound of Eliot’s 
voice. The next hour she spent by the window, 
looking down on the shifting scenes of the streets 
below, — the noisy New York streets, spread out like 
a giant picture-book before her. Then it began to 
grow dark, and lights twinkled here and there, and 
great letters of flame appeared as by magic across 
the fronts of buildings, and on the electric arches 
spanning the streets. 

Eliot came and drew the curtains, and a glance at 
the little cupids told her it was time to dress for 
dinner. 

“ I’ll wear my buttercup dress to-night, Eliot,” said 
Eugenia, when her black hair had been carefully 
brushed and plaited in two long braids. “ It always 
makes my eyes look so big and dark, somehow, and 
brings out the colour in my lips and cheeks.” 


4 6 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

“ You are a young one to be noticing such things 
as that,” said Eliot, under her breath. She wanted 
to say it aloud, but she only pursed her lips together 
as she got out the dress Eugenia had asked for. It 
was of some soft, clinging material, of the same 
sunny yellow that buttercups wear, and Eugenia 
knew very well how becoming it was to her brunette 
style of beauty. After she was dressed, she spun 
around before the pier-glass until she heard her 
father’s step in the hall. 

Although she had been so impatient for his com- 
ing, she said nothing about the invitation from Lo- 
cust until they had gone down to dinner and were 
seated in the great dining-room together. She knew 
that that was not the way Mollie or Fay or Kell would 
have done. Any one of them would have rushed at 
her father the moment he came in sight, and would 
have put her arms around his neck and poured out 
the whole story. But Eugenia had never felt on 
such intimate terms with her father. She admired 
him extremely, and thought he was the handsomest 
man she had ever seen, but her love for him was of 
a selfish kind. So long as he indulged her and never 
opposed her will, she was a most dutiful little daugh- 
ter, but as soon as his wishes crossed hers she pouted 
and sulked. 


“ ONE FLEW EAST: 


47 


To her surprise, he made no objection to her ac- 
cepting the invitation to the house party, except to 
say, half-laughingly, “ Don’t you think you are a 
little selfish to want to run off and leave me alone 
when I’ve scarcely seen you all winter?” Then he 
laughed outright as she made a saucy little grimace 
in answer. He would miss her very much when 
she was gone, for she was a bright little thing and 
amused him, but he had a feeling of relief as well 
to think that a month of her vacation would be pleas- 
antly occupied. She had been so discontented away 
from her little friends. 

After dinner they strolled into an alcove, screened 
from the hall by great pots of palms, and sat down 
to listen to the music, and watch the people passing 
back and forth. It was a gay scene. Ladies in 
elaborate evening gowns passed out with their escorts 
to the opera, or waited for the carriages that were to 
take them later to balls or receptions. Everywhere 
there was the gleam of white shoulders, the nodding 
of jewelled aigrettes, the flashing of diamond tiaras. 
Above it all rose the odour of flowers, the hum of 
voices, and the music of violins. 

Mr. Forbes, smiling through half-closed eyelids at 
this passing of Vanity Fair, looked down at Eugenia. 
She was leaning forward in a picturesque pose against 


48 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY . 

the arm of her high-backed chair. The light fell 
softly on her pale yellow gown and her dusky hair. 
The red lips were parted in a smile as she watched 
the pretty pageant, and there was a bright colour in 
her cheeks. 

Mr. Forbes was proud of his handsome little 
daughter. He admired her ease of manner, and 
boasted that she was as self-possessed under all cir- 
cumstances as any grown woman he knew. It 
pleased him to have his friends predict that she 
would be a brilliant social success. He was doing 
everything in his power to make her that, and yet — 
sometimes — a vague fear crossed his mind that she 
was growing cold and selfish. Sometimes she seemed 
far too old and worldly-wise for a child of her age. 
He sighed as he looked at her. They were sitting 
so near each other that his hand rested on the arm 
of her chair. Yet he felt that they had grown widely 
apart in their long absences. 

“ What are you thinking about, Eugenia ? ” he 
asked, suddenly. She turned with a little start. 

“ Oh, I had forgotten that you were there ! ” she 
exclaimed. “I was thinking of Locust, and how 
glad I would be to get away from this tiresome place. 
It’s such a bore to do the same thing night after 
night, and always watch the same kind of people.” 


ONE FLEW EAST. n 


49 


A shadow crossed his face, but she did not see it. 
She had turned back to her day-dreams in which he 
had no part. Happy little day-dreams, of what was 
to come with the coming June. 


CHAPTER IV. 


“ONE FLEW WEST.” 

Out in the village of Plainsville, Kansas, the rain 
was running in torrents down the gables of the little 
brown house where the Ware family lived. It had 
rained all day, a cold, steady pour, until the world 
outside had taken on the appearance of early March, 
instead of late May. 

Holland and Mary and the baby (they called him 
baby still, although he was nearly four) were playing 
menagerie in the corners of the dining-room. They 
had a tent made of the clothes-horse and some 
sheets, and the growling and roaring that went on 
inside was something terrific. It made no difference 
to the little mother, placidly sewing by the last rays 
of daylight at one of the western windows ; but the 
noise grated on Joyce’s mood. 

Joyce had finished setting the supper-table, and 
while she waited for the potatoes to boil she stood 
with her face pressed against the kitchen window, 
looking gloomily out into the back yard. 


“ ONE FLEW WEST 1 ’ 


51 


It was not a cheerful outlook. Nothing was to be 
seen but the high board alley fence with a broken 
chicken-coop leaning against it, the weather-beaten 
old stable, and a scraggy, dripping peach-tree. The 
yard was full of puddles, and still the rain splashed 
on. The sight made Joyce want to cry. 

“If I wasn’t at home,” she said to herself, “ I 
should think that I am homesick, for I feel the way 
I did that day up in Monsieur Greville’s pear-tree in 
the old French garden. Then I was tired of France 
and everything foreign, and would have given all I 
owned to be back in America. Now I am here with 
mother and the children, but still I am as unhappy 
and dissatisfied as I was then. I wonder why ! ” 

It had been less than a year since Joyce had had 
that wonderful winter in Touraine with her cousin 
Kate, but it seemed such a long, long time ago, in 
looking back upon it. She had settled down into the 
common humdrum round of duties so completely 
that sometimes it seemed to her that she had never 
been away at all ; that she must have dreamed that 
year into her life, or read about it as happening to 
some other girl. 

As she stood with her face pressed against the 
window-pane, the noise in the dining-room suddenly 
ceased, and Mary came into the kitchen, followed 


5 2 THE LITTLE CO LONE VS HOUSE PARTY. 

by the rest of the menagerie. “ I’m tired of being 
a lion,” she said, wiping her flushed little face with 
the sleeve of her apron, and shaking back her funny 
little tails of hair tied with red ribbon, that were 
always bobbing forward over her shoulders. 

“ I’ve roared till my throat is sore, and I’m hungry. 
Isn’t supper most ready, sister ? ” 

Joyce glanced at the clock. “It’ll be ready in ten 
minutes,” she answered, and returned to her survey 
of the back yard. 

“ I wish that we were going to have dumplings for 
supper to-night,” said Holland, “ and turkey and sau- 
sages. Don’t you, Mary ? ” He snuffed hungrily at 
the saucepan on the stove. 

“No,” said Mary, pausing thoughtfully, as if con- 
sidering a weighty matter. “I’d rather have ice- 
cream and chocolate cake. If I had a witch with 
a wand that’s what I’d wish for supper to-night. 
Wouldn’t you, sister ? ” 

Joyce turned away from the window and lifted the 
lid from the kettle in which the stew was bubbling. 
“I don’t know,” she said, gazing dreamily into the 
depths of the savoury stew. “ If I had that old witch 
with a wand that you are always talking about, I’d 

not stop simply with something to eat. I would wish 

» 

myself back in Tours, with Madame sweeping down 


“ ONE FLEW WEST: 


53 


to dinner in her red velvet gown, and the candle- 
light shining on the cut glass and silver. I’d wish 
for dinner to be served elegantly in courses as Henri 
did it there every night, and I’d hear old Monsieur 
making his little jokes over the walnuts and wine. 
And afterward there wouldn’t be any dishes for me 
to wash, as there are here, and at bedtime Marie 
would come with my candle and untie my slippers 
and brush my hair. Oh, it’s so nice to be waited on ! 
You don’t know how I miss it sometimes. It is 
horrid to be poor.” 

Mary and Holland listened in flattering silence. 
They had great respect for their thirteen-year old 
sister, who had been across seas and visited old 
chateaux where kings and queens once lived. She 
was the only child in Plainsville who could boast the 
distinction of having been abroad, and there was 
a glamour about it that enchanted them. They were 
never tired of hearing of her adventures. 

“ It’s horrid to be poor,” she said again, clapping 
the lid on the kettle. “ I hate to live in a little 
crowded-up house, and spoil my hands with dust and 
dish-water, and do the same things year in and year 
out.” 

Joyce stopped suddenly, wishing that she could 
unsay that last speech, for the little mother had 


54 THE little colonevs house party. 

come into the kitchen in time to hear it. There 
was a pained expression on her face. 

“ I am afraid my bird of passage will never be satis- 
fied with the little home nest again,” she said, sadly. 

“ Oh, mother, I didn’t mean it as bad as it sounds ; 
truly, I didn’t,” cried Joyce. “You know that usu- 
ally I am as contented as a cricket ; but I don’t know 
what is the matter with me to-day. It must be the 
weather.” 

Just then there was a stamping on the porch out- 
side, and the violent flapping of an umbrella to rid it 
of the raindrops clinging to it. 

“ Jack!” shouted Mary, rushing to the door, with 
Holland and the baby tagging at her heels. “A 
letter for Joyce!” they called in chorus the next 
instant, all straggling back after the oldest brother 
as he bore it triumphantly into the kitchen. 

“From Lloydsboro Valley,” announced Joyce, 
and Mrs. Ware’s face lighted up with one of her 
rare smiles. 

“Ah, I knew it was coming,” she said, “and I am 
sure it will prove an antidote for your blues. I had 
a letter from the same place last week, and I’ve 
been in the secret ever since.” 

“ What secret ? ” demanded Mary, her eyes round 
with curiosity, and Jack echoed the question. 


“ ONE FLEW WEST: 


55 


“ That Joyce was to be invited to a house party in 
June, back in ‘ My old Kentucky home.’ The invi- 
tation is from one of my old school friends. There 
were three of us,” she went on, in answer to the 
look of eager interest in Mary’s eyes. “ Three girls 
who grew up together : Joyce Allen (your sister is 
named for her), Elizabeth Lloyd, and myself. And 
now our little daughters are to meet in the same 
dear old valley where we played together and grew 
up together and learned to love each other like 
sisters. I hope they will become as dear friends as 
we were.” 

Joyce looked up from her letter, her face aglow 
with joyful surprise. “ Oh, mother!” she cried, 
“ do you really mean it ? Is it possible that I am 
to go ? How can you afford it ? ” 

Mrs. Ware motioned toward the envelope lying at 
Joyce’s feet. 

“ Look again,” she said, “ and you will find that 
Mr. Sherman has sent a pass. As for the clothes, 
well, your ‘ witch with a wand’ has come to the 
rescue again.” 

“ Cousin Kate ? ” gasped Joyce. 

Mrs. Ware nodded. “What would you think if 
I were to tell you that there has been a box hidden 
away in my closet for nearly a week, waiting for this 


5 6 THE LITTLE COLONEL’S HOUSE PARTY. 

letter, which I knew was on its way, and inside are 
the very things you need to complete your summer 
outfit ? There is a new hat, for one thing, and mate- 
rial for several very pretty dresses.” 

Mary danced up and down, her hair-ribbons bob- 
bing over her shoulders, and her face ashine, as she 
cried, “ Oh, sister, isn’t it lovely ? I’m so glad, I’m 
so glad, I’m so glad ! ” 

But Joyce stood with her face suddenly grown 
serious and her lips trembling. Her little sister’s 
unselfish delight made her conscience hurt. Putting 
her arms around her mother’s neck, she hid her face 
against her shoulder. “Oh, mother,” she sobbed, 
“ I don’t deserve it all ! Here I’ve been so fretful 
and discontented all day, thinking there’d never be 
any good times any more, and that there was nothing 
but work ahead of me, and all the time this beautiful 
surprise was on its way. I don’t deserve for it to 
be mine. It ought to be Mary’s. She never frets 
over things.” 

Mrs. Ware looked down into Mary’s face, still 
a-smile with the thought of her sister’s pleasure, and 
said : “ Mary is to have a little slice of this, too. I 
wonder what she will say when she sees a certain 
pink parasol that I saw in that box, and a white 
sash with pink rosebuds on it, and slippers that I’m 


“ ONE FLEW WEST” 57 

sure wouldn’t fit anything else in the house but her 
own wigglesome little feet.” 

Mary’s hands came together ecstatically, with a 
long-drawn “ Oh ! ” Then she clasped her mother 
around the knees, demanding, breathlessly : 

“ Anything for Holland in that box ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Anything for Jack ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Anything for the baby ? ” 

Mrs. Ware nodded. 

“ And you ? ” 

Another nod. 

“ Then there isn’t a single word in the dictionary 
good enough to fit ! ” screamed Mary, excitedly, spin- 
ning around and around in the kitchen floor until the 
red ribbons stood out at right angles from her head. 
“ There isn’t a single word, Holland ; we’ll just have 
to squeal /” 

At that she gave a long, ear-piercing shriek that 
seemed to go through the roof like a fine-pointed 
needle. Holland and the baby joined in, each trying 
to make a louder noise than the other. Their eyes 
were tightly shut, their mouths wide open, and their 
faces red to bursting. 

“ There, there, children ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Ware, 


58 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

laughingly, as they stopped to take breath. “The 
neighbours will think that the house is on fire. 
We’ll have a policeman after us if you make such a 
noise.” 

“ The kettle is boiling over ! ” cried Holland, and 
Joyce flew to the rescue. Jack went to change his 
wet clothes, and the three smaller children trotted 
back and forth, pushing chairs to the table, and 
helping to carry in the supper. 

Many a bedraggled passer-by that evening looked 
out from under his dripping umbrella as he neared 
the little brown house, cheered by a babel of happy 
voices. The lamplight streaming across the wet 
pavement drew his gaze to a window whose blinds 
had not been closed, and the picture lingered pleas- 
antly in his memory for many a day. It was the 
Ware family at supper. And afterward, when the 
dishes had been cleared away, there was another 
picture to shine out into the wet night : the children 
unpacking the box that Jack had dragged out of its 
hiding-place. 

Mary paraded jubilantly around the room in her 
new slippers, the rosebud sash tied around her ging- 
ham apron, the pink parasol held high above her 
head, and her face such a picture of delight that one 
could not look at her without smiling, too. 



LOUIS M6YHCU 

ft** 


WM ' 








l 



1 . | 


“SHE SORTED THE RIBBONS AND EXAMINED THE GLOVES 





ONE FLEW WEST 1 ” 


59 


Even the baby sat up an hour after his bedtime, to 
take part in the unusual excitement. The prospect 
of Joyce’s seeing the old valley seemed to have un- 
locked a door into the little mother’s memory. Story 
after story she brought out to entertain them, of the 
things that had happened when she was a care-free 
little schoolgirl, before sorrow and worry and work 
had come to make her tired and sad. 

While she entertained them Joyce brought a bureau 
drawer from her bedroom, and, propping it on two 
chairs, began looking over its contents. She sorted 
the ribbons and examined the gloves, counted the 
handkerchiefs and inspected the stockings, dividing 
everything into three piles. One pile was pronounced 
suitable to take on the visit, one good enough to wear 
at home after another renovating, and one altogether 
past wearing. 

“It’s a sort of day of judgment,” said Jack, who 
was watching the performance with interest. “ You’re 
separating the sheep from the goats ; only there’s 
three divisions here, white sheep, black sheep, and 
goats.” 

“ I love for such days to come,” said Mary, falling 
upon the third pile and bearing it away as her lawful 
spoils, “for I always get all the goats. Now my 
dolls can set up a milliner’s shop and dry-goods 


60 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

store with all this stuff that Joyce has thrown 
away.” 

“ You may take my new umbrella with you, if you 
want it, Joyce,” said Jack. “ I haven’t used it half a 
dozen times since I got it Christmas, and you will 
want to put on style in Kentucky. Your old one is 
good enough for me to use out here in Plainsville.” 

“ Do you want my blue spotted necktie, sister ? ” 
asked Holland, leaning against her and looking up into 
her face with an anxious little pucker on his forehead. 
“ It’s the best one I’ve got, but you may take it if 
you want to.” 

“ And maybe — ” began Mary, hesitatingly. She 
stopped an instant, a little struggle evidently going 
on in her mind. Then she began again, bravely : 
“Yes, I’ll lend it to you if you want it. You may 
take my new rosebud sash. There ! ” 

A queer little lump came into Joyce’s throat as she 
thanked the children for their generous offers. She 
accepted the umbrella, but refused the spotted tie and 
rosebud sash, to the evident relief of their owners, who 
wanted to be generous, but were glad to be able to 
keep the part of their wardrobes they most admired. 

“It more than doubles the pleasure, doesn’t it, 
mamma,” said Joyce, “to have everybody take so 
much interest in your having a good time ? I wonder 


“ ONE FLEW WEST: 


6 1 


if the other girls are having as much fun out of plan- 
ning for their visit as I am.” 

“ I doubt it,” answered Mrs. Ware. “ Elizabeth is 
an orphan, you know, and Eugenia Forbes, with all her 
wealth, is practically homeless, for there is little home- 
life in either a boarding-school or a big hotel.” 

Joyce looked around on the cheerful little group 
gathered near the lamp, and a sudden mist blurred 
her sight at thought of leaving them. She would not 
have exchanged the little brown house and what it 
held, just then, for a king’s palace. Outside in the 
pitch-darkness of the night the rain beat against the 
window-panes like some poor beggar imploring to 
come in ; and inside it was so cosy and bright with 
the warmth and cheer of home-loves and home-lights 
that Joyce was not sure, after all, that she could leave 
such a shelter even to be a guest at the Little 
Colonel’s house party. 


c 


CHAPTER V. 

BETTY REACHES THE “ HOUSE BEAUTIFUL.” 

It was very early in the morning, while the dew 
was still on the meadows, that Betty fared forth on 
her pilgrimage. The old farm wagon that was to 
take her to the railroad station, two miles away, was 
drawn up to the d'@or before five o’clock. Davy 
proudly held the reins while his father carried Betty’s 
trunk down-stairs. 

Poor, shabby, little, old leather trunk ! It was not 
half full, for there had been small preparation for this* 
visit. Betty had carefully folded the few gingham 
dresses she possessed, and the new blue and white 
lawn bought for her to wear to church. There were 
several stitches to be taken in her plain cotton under- 
wear, and a button to be sewed on her only white 
ruffled apron. 

That was all that she could do to make herself 
ready, except to put her hair-ribbons and handkerchiefs 
smoothly into a little diamond-shaped box that had 
once held toilet soap. Betty felt rich in ribbons “to 

62 


c 


BETTY BEACHES THE “HOUSE BEAUTIFUL .” 63 

tie up her bonnie brown hair/’ for there were three 
bows the colour of her curls, and two of red, and one 
of delicate robin’s-egg blue. The last was to wear 
with the new lawn, and, in order to keep it fresh and 
fine, it lay wrapped in tissue-paper all week, between 
the times of its Sunday wearings. 

And the handkerchiefs — well, six of them were 
plain and white, and two had pictures stamped in the 
corners. One told the story of Red Ridinghood and 
the other had scenes from Cinderella outlined in blue. 
They had been Davy’s present to her the Christmas 
before, and he had bought them at . Squire Jaynes’s 
store with his own precious pennies. 

That was all that Betty had intended to put into 
her trunk, but when they were in, there was still so 
much room that she decided to take her books and 
several of her chief treasures. “ They will be safer,” 
she said to herself, and she filled a box with cotton 
in which to pack some of her breakable keepsakes. 
She had hesitated some time about taking her scrap- 
book, an old ledger on whose blank pages she had 
written many verses. She hardly dared call them 
poetry, and yet they were dear to her, because they 
were the outpourings of her lonely little heart. 

All the children knew that she “made up rhymes,” 
but only Davy had any knowledge of the old ledger. 


64 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE TATTY. 

He could not understand all the verses she read to 
him about the wild flowers, and life and death and 
time, but they jingled pleasantly in his ears, and he 
made an attentive listener. 

“I’ll take it,” she decided at last, slipping some 
loose pages in between the covers. “ I may want to 
write something at Locust.” 

She paused long at the foot of her bed, trying to 
make up her mind about her godmother’s picture, 
that hung there in a little frame of pine cones. 

“ I don’t know whether to take it or not,” she said 
to Davy, looking up lovingly at the Madonna of her 
dreams, whose sweet face had been her last greeting 
at night, and first welcome on waking, for several 
years. “ I hate to leave it behind, but I’ll have my 
real godmother to look at while I’m gone, and it’ll 
seem so nice to have this picture here to smile at me 
when I get back, as if she was glad I’d come home. 
I believe I’ll leave it.” 

It was a solemn moment when Betty climbed into 
the wagon after her trunk had been lifted in at the 
back, and perched herself on the high spring seat, 
beside Davy and his father. The other children 
were drawn up in a line along the porch, to watch 
her go. She wore one of her every-day dresses of 
dark blue gingham, and her white sunbonnet, but the 


BETTY BEACHES THE “ HOUSE BEAUTIFUL , ” 65 

familiar little figure had taken on a new interest to 
them. They regarded her as some sort of a venture- 
some Columbus, about to launch on a wild voyage of 
discovery. None of them had ever been beyond 
Jaynes’s Post-office in their journeyings, and the 
youngest had not seen even that much of the out- 
side world. 

Betty herself could not remember having been on 
a longer trip than to Livermore, a village ten miles 
away. There was an excited flutter in her throat as 
the wagon started forward with a jolt, and she real- 
ised that now she was looking her last on safe famil- 
iar scenes, and breaking loose from all safe familiar 
landmarks. 

“ Good-bye ! ” she cried again, looking back at the 
little group on the porch with tears in her eyes. 

“ Good-bye ! Good-bye ! ” they called, in a noisy 
chorus, repeating the call like a brood of clacking 
guineas, until the wagon passed out of sight down 
the lane. The road turned at the church. Betty 
leaned forward for one more look at the window, on 
whose sill she had passed so many happy afternoons 
reading to Davy. The board was still leaning against 
the house, where she had propped it. 

“Good-bye, dear old church,” she said softly to 
herself. 


66 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

They drove around the corner of the little neg* 
lected graveyard, where the headstones gleamed 
white in the morning sunshine, above the dark, 
glossy green of the myrtle vines. How peaceful 
and quiet it seemed. The dew still shone in tiny 
beads on the cobwebs, spun across the grass, a spicy 
smell of cedar boughs floated across the road to 
them, and a dove called somewhere in the distant 
woodlands. As they passed, a wild rose hung over 
the gray pickets of the straggling old fence, and 
waved a spray of pale pink blossoms to them. 

“ Good-bye,” she whispered, turning for one more 
look at the familiar headstones. They were like old 
friends ; she had wandered among them so often. 
One held her gaze an instant, with its well-known 
marble hand, pointing the place in a marble book in 
which was carved one text. How often she had 
spelled the words, pointing out the deeply carven 
letters to Davy: “Be ye also ready B 

She had a vague feeling that the headstones knew 
she was going away and would miss her. “ Good- 
bye,” she said to them, too, nodding the white sun- 
bonnet gravely. It seemed a solemn thing to start 
on such a journey. After leaving the church there 
was only one more place to bid good-bye, and that 
was the schoolhouse sitting through its lonely 


BETTY BEACHES THE “ HOUSE BEAUTIFUL ” 6? 

vacation time in a deserted playground, gone to 
weeds. 

There was no time to spare at the station. Mr. 
Appleton tied the horses and hurried to have Betty’s 
trunk checked. The shriek of the locomotive coming 
down the track made Betty turn cold. It was like a 
great demon thundering toward her. Davy edged 
closer to her, moved by the strange surroundings to 
ask a question. 

“ Say, Betty, ain’t you afraid ? ” 

“Yes,” she confessed, squeezing the warm little 
hand in her own, which had suddenly seemed to turn 
to ice. “ My heart is going bump-bump-bump like 
a scared wild rabbit’s ; but I keep saying over and 
over to myself what the python said. Don’t you 
remember in Kaa’s hunting ? ‘ A brave heart and a 

courteous tongue, said he, they shall carry thee far 
through the jungle, manling.’ It can’t be such a 
very big jungle that I’m going into, and godmother 
will meet me in a few hours. Don’t forget me, Davy, 
while I’m gone.” 

She stooped to give the little fellow a hug and 
a kiss on each dimpled cheek, for the train had 
stopped, and Mr. Appleton was waiting to shake 
hands and lift her up the steps. Betty stumbled 
into the first vacant seat she saw, and sat up primly, 


68 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

afraid to glance behind her. In her lap, tightly 
clasped by both hands, she held a little old-fashioned 
basket of brown willow. It had two handles and a 
lid with double flaps. She carried it because she had 
no travelling-bag. Her lunch was in that, her pass, 
five nickels, and the Red Ridinghood handkerchief. 

“You can let that be a sort of warning to you,” 
said Mrs. Appleton, at parting, “ not to get into con- 
versation with strangers. Red Ridinghood never 
would have got into trouble if she hadn’t stopped 
to tell the Wolf all she knew.” 

Remembering this warning, Betty sat up very 
straight at first, and held the basket handles in 
such a tight grasp that her fingers ached. But after 
the conductor had looked at her pass and smiled 
kindly into the appealing little face under the white 
sunbonnet, she felt more at ease and began to look 
shyly about her. 

Somebody’s grandmother was in the seat in front 
of her, such a fat, comfortable-looking old lady, that 
Betty felt sure she could not be a Wolf in disguise, 
and watched her with neighbourly interest. She fell 
to wondering about her, where she lived and where 
she was going, and what she had in her many bags, 
boxes, shawl-straps, and satchels. 

Things were not half so strange as she had ex- 


BETTY BEACHES THE “ HOUSE BEAUTIFUL , ” 69 

pected them to be. The corn-fields and tobacco-fields 
and apple-orchards whizzing past the windows were 
exactly like the ones she had left at home. More 
than once a meadow full of daisies, gleaming on her 
sight like drifts of summer snow, made her think of 
the lower pasture at home, where she had waded 
through them the day before, waist-deep. 

Even the people who came on the cars at the sta- 
tions along the way looked like the people she saw at 
church every week, and Betty soon began to feel very 
much at home. After awhile the train stopped at a 
junction where she had to wait several hours to make 
connection with the Louisville train. But even that 
did not turn out to be a bad experience, as she had 
feared, for the old lady waited too, and she was as 
anxious to find a friend as Betty was. So it was not 
long until the two were talking together as sociably 
as two old neighbours, and they ate their lunch to- 
gether with so many exchanges of confidences that 
they were both surprised when Betty’s train came 
puffing along. They had not imagined the time 
could fly so fast. 

At parting they kissed each other as if they had 
always been friends, and Betty climbed into the car 
with a warm glow in her heart at having found such 
unexpected pleasantness along the way. 


JO THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

“It was silly of me to have been so frightened,” 
she thought. “The world isn’t a jungle, after all, 
and we are just as apt to meet the grandmothers as 
the wolves when we go travelling. ” 

She was mixing Kaa’s experience with Red Riding- 
hood’s in her thought, but it made no difference. The 
conclusion she reached was a comfortable one. So 
she leaned back in her seat to enjoy the rest of the 
journey without any foolish fears. 

Little by little the motion of the train had its 
effect. The white sunbonnet nodded nearer and 
nearer toward the cushioned back of the seat ; the 
brown eyes drooped drowsily, and in a few minutes 
Betty was sound asleep. That was the last she knew 
of the trip that she had settled herself to enjoy, for 
when she awoke the brakeman was calling “ Louis- 
ville ! ” at the top of his voice, and people were be- 
ginning to reach up to the racks overhead for their 
bundles. 

There was a general uprising of the passengers. 
The crowd pushed toward the door, carrying the 
startled child with them as they surged down the 
aisle, and all at once — as she stepped off the train 
— she found herself in the depths of her dreaded 
jungle. It was so confusing she did not know which 
way to turn. The roar and clang of a great city 


BETTY REACHES THE “ HOUSE BEAUTIFUL ” 7 1 

smote on her ears as she stood in the big Union 
depot, helpless, bewildered, and as lost as a stray 
kitten in the midst of that noisy, pushing crowd. 
Sharp elbows jostled her this way and that ; strange 
faces streamed past her by thousands, it seemed. 
How could anybody find anybody else in such a 
whirlpool of people? Hunting for a needle in 
a haystack seemed nothing in comparison to find- 
ing her godmother in such a crowd. 

Betty stood looking around her helplessly in the 
middle of the overpowering din of whistles and bells 
and the thunder of wheels on the cobblestones out- 
side. That moment she would have given anything 
she owned to be safely back on the quiet farm. The 
big brown eyes in the depths of the sunbonnet filled 
with tears, but she resolutely winked them back, 
whispering the python’s words : “ A brave heart and 
a courteous tongue, manling.” 

But she could not stop the frightened thumping in 
her breast, and of what use was a courteous tongue, 
when nobody would stop to listen ? She wondered 
what had happened to make a whole city full of 
people in such a desperate hurry. 

Two tears splashed down on the brown willow 
basket-lid, and then — No telling what would have 
happened next, had not the jungle opened, without 


72 THE LITTLE CO LONE VS HOUSE PARTY. 

waiting for a brave heart and a courteous tongue on 
Betty’s part. Coming toward her all in dainty gray 
and white was a lady she would have recognised any- 
where. That face, that had been the Madonna of her 
dreams, both waking and sleeping, since the first 
night it had kept its smiling vigil above her little 
bed, could belong to no one but her beautiful god- 
mother. 

With a glad little cry of recognition she sprang 
forward, catching one slim gray-gloved hand in hers. 
The white sunbonnet fell back, the brown eyes 
looked out from a tangle of dusky curls with a 
world of loving admiration in their depths, and the 
next instant Betty was folded in Mrs. Sherman’s 
arms. 

“ Joyce Allen,” she exclaimed, “all over again! 
Joyce’s own little daughter ! I would have known 
you anywhere, dear, I think, even — ” She did not 
finish the sentence. Even in such an outlandish 
costume, was what she had started to say. She had 
seen Betty as the child stepped off the train, but had 
not given her a second glance, as it never occurred 
to her that the little guest she had come to meet 
would travel in a sunbonnet. 

But Betty was blissfully unconscious of her ap- 
pearance. As they crossed the city to a suburban 


BETTY REACHES THE “ HOUSE BEAUTIFUL . ” 73 

depot, she was so interested in the mysteries of the 
trolley-car on which they rode, so absorbed by the 
great show-windows they passed, and so amazed by 
the city sights and sounds on every hand, that she 
was not conscious of the fact that she even had a 
head. It might have been bald for all she was 
concerned about the covering of it. 

The Little Colonel was waiting in the carriage at 
the depot when Mrs. Sherman and Betty stepped 
off the train at Lloydsboro Valley. Rob Moore had 
come down, too, curious for a glimpse at the first 
arrival. He grinned at the expression of surprise 
and dismay on the Little Colonel’s face as her glance 
fell on Betty. Was it that her little guest had no 
hat, she wondered, or was it because no one in the 
cuckoo’s nest had ever taught her any better than 
to go travelling in such style ? And carrying a little 
old-fashioned willow basket, too ! How odd and 
countrified she looked ! 

But Lloyd was too ladylike to show her disappoint- 
ment. She climbed out of the carriage and greeted 
Betty as graciously as her mother had done. Then 
straightway she forgot her annoyance, for the sweet 
friendliness of the little face smiling up into hers 
was irresistible. 

“ Does the Valley look as you thought it would, 


74 THE little colonels house party. 

Elizabeth ? ” asked Mrs. Sherman, as the carriage 
rolled homeward, past handsome suburban homes with 
closely cut lawns and trimly kept paths. 

“No," said Betty, hesitatingly. “You see I 
thought you lived in the country, and I suppose it 
is a sort of country, but not the kind that I live in. 
Here everything is pruned and raked until it looks 
as if it had just had its hair parted smoothly in the 
middle, and its shoe-strings tied. At home there is 
so much underbrush, and such a tangle of weeds and 
high grass and briers, that the yards look as if they’d 
forgotten to comb their hair when they got up, and 
had gone around all day with it hanging down their 
backs in snarls.” 

The Little Colonel laughed. The newcomer had 
amusing fancies, at any rate. 

“And there’s the same difference in everything 
else,” continued Betty. “ The same difference that 
there was between Cinderella’s pumpkin and her 
gilded coach. It was a pumpkin all the time, only it 
looked different after it was bewitched. And do you 
know,” she said, with a charming little burst of con- 
fidence that made Lloyd’s heart warm toward her, 
“I began to feel bewitched myself, from the first 
moment that godmother spoke to me? She called 
me Elizabeth, and at home I am just plain Betty. 


BETTY REACHES THE “HOUSE BEAUTIFULS J 5 

Oh, I think it is perfectly beautiful to have a god- 
mother.” 

She looked shyly up at the face above her with 
such a winning smile that Mrs. Sherman drew her 
toward her with a quick hug and kiss. Lloyd gave 
a little wriggle of satisfaction. “I’m so glad you’ve 
come ! ” she cried, so completely won by Betty’s 
artlessness that she forgot her first impression. 

“ Heah we are at Locust,” she said, as they drove 
into the long avenue. “ I wish you could have seen 
the trees when they were all in bloom. It was like 
a picture.” 

“It is like a picture now, I think,” said Betty, 
gazing up at the giant branches overheard that 
seemed to be waving a welcome. There was a lis- 
tening expression on her face, as if she understood 
their leafy whisperings. Lloyd and her mother 
exchanged glances, and after that she was disturbed 
by no word until the carriage stopped. They under- 
stood her silent pleasure in the great trees that they 
themselves had learned to look upon as old friends. 

At the house Betty leaned forward for an admir- 
ing glance at the tall white pillars, all wreathed and 
festooned in their green lacework of vines. “Oh, 
I know this place,” she cried. “ It is in my * Pil- 
grim’s Progress,’ where Christian stopped awhile 


j6 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

on his way to the City of the Shining Ones. It is 
the House Beautiful ! ” 

“ What odd fancies you have ! ” exclaimed Lloyd, 
stepping out of the carriage as she spoke. “ But it 
is dear of you to give the place such a sweet name. 
Come on up and see your room. After you have 
rested awhile I’ll take you all over the house.” 

As they went down the wide, airy hall, Betty had 
a glimpse of the drawing-room through the open 
doors. In a confused way she noticed mirrors and 
statuary and portraits, handsome old furniture and 
rare pieces of bric-a-brac ; but one thing caught her 
attention so that she stood a moment in round-eyed 
admiration. It was a large harp, whose gracefully 
curving frame gleamed through the shadowy room 
like burnished gold. Fair and tall it stood, as if its 
strings had just been swept by some of the Shining 
Ones beyond, who were a part of the Pilgrim’s 
dream. 

“What did you say?” asked Lloyd, hearing her 
cry of admiration, and looking back to see Betty 
standing in the open door with clasped hands. “ Oh, 
that is grandmothah’s harp. I am learning to play 
on it to please grandfathah. I’ll teach you some 
chords while you are heah, if you want me to. Come 
on.” 


BETTY REA CUES THE “HOUSE BEAUTIFULS 77 


At the landing where the stairs turned, Betty- 
stopped again, for there was a great casement win- 
dow looking out into a beech-grove, and under it a 
cosy cushioned window-seat, where some one had 
evidently been reading. There were books and 
magazines scattered all among the pillows. 

“ Heah is yo’ room ! ” cried Lloyd, throwing open 
a door at the head of the stairs, and leading the way 
in. Betty followed, her sunbonnet in her hand, and 
looked around her like one in a dream. She had 
never imagined a room could be so beautiful. If 
Lloyd could have known what a contrast it was to the 
bare little west gable at the cuckoo’s nest, she could 
have better understood the wonder in Betty’s face. 

“ My room is pink, and Eugenia’s green, and 
Joyce’s blue,” explained Lloyd. “Mothah thought 
you would like this white and gold one best, ’cause 
it’s like a daisy field.” 

Before Betty could express her admiration, Mrs. 
Sherman came in with an old coloured woman whom 
she called Mom Beck, and who, she told Betty, had 
been her own nurse as well as Lloyd’s. “ And she 
is anxious to see you,” added Mrs. Sherman, “for 
she remembers your mamma so well. Many a time 
she helped dress her when she was a little girl no 
larger than you, and came home with me for a visit. 


78 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

She’ll bring you some milk or iced tea, and fix your 
bath when you are ready for it. We are going 
to leave you now for a little while and see if you 
can’t have a nice little nap. It has been a long, 
tiresome journey, and you need the rest more than 
you realise.” 

Left to herself, Betty undressed and lay down as 
she had been bidden. Her eyes were tired and she 
closed them sleepily, but they would not stay shut. 
She was obliged to open them for another peep at 
the dear little white dressing-table with its crystal 
candlesticks, that looked like twisted icicles. And 
she must see that darling little heart-shaped pin- 
cushion again, and all the dainty toilet articles of 
gold and ivory. Then she could not resist another 
glance at the white Angora rugs lying on the dark, 
polished floor, and the white screen before her wash- 
stand with sprays of goldenrod painted across it, 
looking as natural as if they had grown there. 

Once she got up and pattered across the room in 
her nightgown to sit a moment before the little 
writing-desk in the corner, and handle all its dainty 
furnishings of gold and mother-of-pearl. There were 
thin white curtains at the windows, held back by 
broad bands of yellow ribbon. They stirred softly 
with every passing breeze, and fluttered and fluttered, 


BETTY TEA CITES THE “ HOUSE BEAUTIFUL ” 79 

until by and by, watching them, Betty’s eyelids 
fluttered, too, and she closed them drowsily. 

While she slept she dreamed that she was back 
in the cuckoo’s nest again, in her bare little room in 
the .gable, and that a great white and yellow daisy 
stood over her, shaking her by the shoulder and telling 
her that it was time to go down and wash the break- 
fast dishes. Then the broad white petals began to fall 
off one by one, and it was Davy’s face in the centre. 
No, whose was it ? She rubbed her eyes and looked 
again, to find her godmother standing in the door. 

“ It is time to dress for dinner, little girl,” she 
called, gaily. “ Do you need any help ? ” 

“No, thank you,” answered Betty, sitting up and 
catching a glimpse of Lloyd going past the door in 
a fresh white muslin and pink ribbons. 

“ Shall I wear my best dress, godmother ? ” asked 
Betty, “ or would it be better to save it for Sunday ? ” 
“ Let me see it,” said Mrs. Sherman, helping her 
to take it out of the little half-filled trunk. “Oh, 
you’d better wear it, I think. We may have com- 
pany.” What she saw in that trunk set her to 
thinking her most godmotherly thoughts. 

The wax tapers were all lighted in each silver can- 
delabra when Betty went down the stairs, looking 
fresh and sweet as a wildflower in her dress and 


80 THE LITTLE COLO HE VS HOUSE PARTY. 

ribbons of robin’s-egg blue. When she slipped into 
the long drawing-room, Lloyd was playing on the 
harp. Over her hung the portrait of a beautiful 
young girl, also standing beside a harp. She was 
dressed in white, and she wore a June rose in her 
hair and another at her throat. Betty walked over 
and looked up at the picture long and earnestly. 

“That’s my grandmothah, Amanthis,” said Lloyd, 
pausing in her song, “ and that’s the way she looked 
the first time grandfathah evah saw her. And heah’s 
Uncle Tom in his soldier clothes, and this is mothah’s 
great-great-aunt that was such a belle in the days of 
Clay and Webstah.” 

She led the way around the room, introducing 
Betty to all the old family portraits, with interesting 
tales about each one. Then she went back to her 
harp, and Betty sat down in front of the first picture 
again. “You belong to me, too, in a way,” thought 
Betty, looking up at it. “ If you are my godmother’s 
mother, then you are my great-godmother, Amanthis, 
and I love you because you are so beautiful.” 

The harp thrilled on, the fair face of the portrait 
seemed to smile back at her, and in some vague, 
sweet way Betty felt that she had come back to her 
own and had been welcomed home to the House 
Beautiful. 


CHAPTER VI. 


THE ENCHANTED NECKLACE. 

Several days after Betty’s arrival, the Little 
Colonel went into her mother’s room with a troubled 
face. 

“ Mothah,” she said, anxiously, “what are we goin’ 
to do about the lawn fete at Anna Moore’s this after- 
noon? Elizabeth hasn’t a thing to weah but that 
lawn dress that she has put on every evenin’ since 
she came, and it isn’t fresh enough. I can’t lend her 
anything because I’m not quite as tall as she is, and 
my clothes would be too short. What is she goin’ 
to do ? ” 

“ Ah, that is my secret, little daughter,” answered 
Mrs. Sherman, with a smile. “ What do you suppose 
I spent that hot morning in town for, the day after 
she came, and why, do you think, have I driven over 
so many times to see Miss Dean ? I have made at 
least six trips there.” 

“Was it to get some clothes made for Elizabeth ? ” 
asked Lloyd. A little expression of doubt showed 
81 


82 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

in the anxious pucker of her forehead. “ But, mothah, 
she is awfully proud if she is poah. Aren’t you 
afraid of hurtin’ her feelin’s ? ” 

“ There are a great many ways of giving gifts, little 
daughter. If I provided her with clothes in a way to 
make her feel that I thought hers were too mean 
to be worn in my house, and that I was ashamed to 
have a guest of mine present such an appearance, 
that would naturally hurt her pride ; but I have 
thought of a way that I am sure will please her. If 
you will call her up-stairs in a few minutes, I will 
show you. Where is she now ? ” 

“ Readin’ on the stair landin’. At least she was 
when I came up. She was in the window-seat.” 

“ Then wait until I take something into her room. 
I’ll tell you when I am ready, and you may call her 
up.” 

Lloyd hung over the banister in the upper hall 
until she heard a whispered “ Ready ; ” then she 
called : “ Come up heah, Elizabeth, mothah wants us 
a minute in yo’ room.” 

Mrs. Sherman was sitting by an open window with 
some sewing in her lap, when Lloyd and Betty 
skipped into the white and gold room. Betty had a 
book in her hand with her finger between the closed 
pages, to keep the place. 


THE ENCHANTED NECKLACE. 83 

“Elizabeth,” said Mrs. Sherman, “do you remem- 
ber the story of the enchanted necklace that was in 
a book of fairy tales I sent you once ? ” 

“ Oh, yes ! ” cried Betty. “ That is one of my 
favourite stories. I have read it twenty times, I am 
sure, and told it to Davy until he almost knows it by 
heart.” 

“ I wish you would tell it to Lloyd, please. She 
has never heard it, and I want to illustrate it for her 
after awhile.” 

The little girl willingly dropped down into a big 
chair full of cushions, and with her finger still mark- 
ing the place in the book, Betty began the story : 

“ Once upon a time, near a castle in a lonely wood, 
there lived an orphan maiden named Olga. She 
would have been all alone in the world had it not 
been for an old woman who befriended her. This 
woman was an old flax-spinner, and lived in a humble 
thatched cottage near the castle. She had taken pity 
on Olga when the little orphan was a helpless baby, 
and so kind had she always been that Olga had grown 
to maidenhood without feeling the lack of father, 
mother, brother, or sister. In all ways the old flax- 
spinner had taken their places. 

“ Every morning Olga carried water from the spring, 
gathered the wild fruits of the woods, and spread the 


84 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

linen on the grass to bleach. This she did to help 
the old woman, for she had a good and grateful heart 
as well as a beautiful face. 

“One day as Olga was wandering by the spring, 
searching for watercresses, the young prince of the 
castle rode by on his prancing charger. A snow- 
white plume waved in his hat, and a shining silver 
bugle hung from his shoulder, for he had been follow- 
ing the chase. 

“He was thirsty and tired, and asked for a drink, 
but there was no cup from which to dip the water 
from the spring. But Olga caught the drops as they 
bubbled out from the spring, holding it in the hollow 
of her beautiful white hands, and, reaching up to 
where he sat, offered him the sparkling water. So 
gracefully was it done that the prince was charmed by 
her lovely face and modest manner, and, baring his 
head, when he had slaked his thirst he touched the 
white hands with his lips. 

“Before he rode away he asked her name and 
where she lived. The next day a courier in scarlet 
and gold stopped at the door of the cottage and invited 
Olga to the castle. Princesses and royal ladies from 
all over the realm were to be entertained there, seven 
days and seven nights. Every night a grand ball 
was to be given, and Olga was summoned to each 


0 1 *VCIl ANTED NECKLACE' 


of the balls. It wuS on account of her pleasing 
manner and her great beauty that she had been bid- 
den. 

“ The old flax-spinner curtsied low to the courier 
and promised that Olga should be at the castle 
without fail. 

“ ‘ But, good dame/ cried Olga when the courier had 
gone, 4 prithee tell me why thou didst make such a 
promise, when thou knowest full well this gown of 
tow is all I own ? Wouldst have me stand before 
the prince in beggar’s garb ? Better to bide at 
home for aye than be put to shame before such 
guests.’ 

“ ‘ Have done, my child,’ the old dame said. ‘ Thou 
shalt wear a court robe of the finest. Years have I 
toiled to give it thee, but that is naught. I loved 
thee as my own.’ 

“ Then the old dame went into an inner room and 
pricked herself with her spindle until a great red drop 
of her heart’s blood fell into her trembling hand. 
With witchery of words she blew upon it, and rolled 
it in her palm, and muttering, turned and turned and 
turned it. And as the spell was laid upon it, it 
shrivelled it into a tiny round ball like a seed, and she 
strung it on to a thread where were many others like 
it. Seventy times seven was the number of beads on 


86 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

this strange rosary. Then she laid it away until the 
time when it should be needed. 

“When the night of the first ball rolled around, 
Olga combed her long golden hair and twined it with 
a wreath of snowy water-lilies, and then she stood 
before the old dame in her dress of tow. To her 
wonderment and grief she saw the old flax-spinner 
had no silken robe in waiting, only a string of beads 
which she clasped around Olga’s white throat. Each 
bead in the necklace looked like a little shrivelled 
seed, and Olga’s eyes were filled with tears of dis- 
appointment. 

Obey me and all will be well,’ said the old dame. 
4 When thou reachest the castle gate clasp one bead 
in thy fingers and say : 

“ * “ For love’s sweet sake, in my hour of need, 

Blossom and deck me, little seed.” 

“ ‘ Straightway, right royally shalt thou be clad. 
Thou hast been a good daughter to me, and thus I 
reward thee. But remember carefully the charm. 
Only to the magic words, “ For love’s sweet sake,” will 
the necklace give up its treasures. If thou shouldst 
forget, then must thou be doomed alway to bear thy 
gown of tow.’ 

“ So Olga sped on her moon-lighted way through 


THE ENCHANTED NECKLACE. 


87 


the forest until she came to the castle gate. There 
she paused, and grasping a bead of the strange neck- 
lace between her fingers, repeated the old dame’s 
charm : 


‘“For love’s sweet sake, in my hour of need, 

Blossom and deck me, little seed.’ 

v “ Immediately the bead burst with a little puff, as 
if a seed pod had snapped asunder. A faint perfume 
surrounded her, rare and subtle as if it had been 
blown across from some flower of Eden. Olga looked 
down and found herself enveloped in a robe of such 
delicate texture that it seemed soft as a rose leaf, and 
as airy as the pink clouds that sometimes float across 
the sunset. The water-lilies in her hair had become 
a coronal of opals. 

“When she entered the great ballroom, the prince 
of the castle started up from his throne in amaze- 
ment. Never before had he seen such a vision of 
loveliness. ‘ Surely,’ said he, ‘ some rose of Paradise 
hath found a soul and drifted earthward to blossom 
here.’ And all that night he had eyes for none but 
her. 

“ The next night Olga started again to the castle 
in her dress of tow, and at the gate she grasped the 
second bead in her fingers, repeating the charm. 


88 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

This time the pale yellow of the daffodils seemed 
to have woven itself into a cloth of gold for her 
adorning. It was like a shimmer of moonbeams, 
and her hair held the diamond flashings of a hundred 
tiny stars. 

“ That night the prince paid her so many compli- 
ments and singled her out so often to bestow his 
favours, that Olga’s head was turned. She tossed it 
proudly, and quite scorned the thought of the hum- 
ble cottage which had given her shelter so long. The 
next day, when she had returned to her gown of tow, 
and was no longer a haughty court lady, but only 
Olga, the flax-spinner’s maiden, she repined at her 
lot. Frowning she carried the water from the 
spring. Frowning she gathered the cresses and 
plucked the woodland fruit. And then she sat all 
day by the spring, refusing to spread the linen on 
the grass to bleach. 

“She was discontented with the old life of toil, 
and pouted crossly because duties called her when 
she wanted to do nothing but sit idly dreaming of 
the gay court scenes in which she had taken a bright, 
brief part. The old flax-spinner’s fingers trembled 
as she spun, when she saw the frowns, for she had 
given of her heart’s blood to buy happiness for the 
maiden she loved, and well she knew there can be no 


THE ENCHANTED NECKLACE. 89 

happiness where frowns abide. She felt that her years 
of sacrifice had been in vain. 

“ That night outside the castle gate Olga paused. 
She had forgotten the charm. The day’s discon- 
tent had darkened her memory as storm clouds 
darken the sky. But she grasped her necklace 
imperiously. 

“ ‘ Deck me at once ! ’ she cried, in a haughty tone. 
4 Clothe me more beautifully than mortal maid was 
ever clad before, so that I may find favour in the 
prince’s sight and become the bride of the castle. I 
would that I were done for ever with the spindle and 
the distaff.* 

“ But the moon went under a cloud and the wind 
began to moan around the turrets. The black night 
hawks in the forests flapped their wings warningly, 
and the black bats flitted low around her head. 

“ ‘ Obey me at once ! * she cried, angrily, stamping 
her foot and jerking at the necklace. But the string 
broke and the beads went rolling away in the dark- 
ness in every direction, and were lost. All but one, 
which she held clasped in her hand. 

“ Then Olga wept at the castle gate ; wept outside 
in the night and the darkness, in her beggar’s garb 
of tow. But after awhile, through her sobbing, stole 
the answering sob of the night wind. ‘ Hush-sh ! ’ 


90 THE LITTLE C0L0NEVS HOUSE PARTY. 

it seemed to say. * Sh-sh ! Never a heart can 
come to harm, if the lips but speak the old dame’s 
charm.’ 

“The voice of the night wind sounded so much 
like the voice of the old flax-spinner that Olga was 
startled and looked around wonderingly. Then sud- 
denly she seemed to see the little thatched cottage 
and the bent form of the lonely old woman at the 
wheel. All the years in which the good dame had 
befriended her seemed to rise up in a row, and out of 
each one called a thousand kindnesses as with one 
voice : ‘ How canst thou forget us, Olga ? We were 
done for thee, for love’s sweet sake and that alone.’ 

“Then was Olga sorry and ashamed that she had 
been so proud and forgetful, and she wept again. 
The tears seemed to clear her vision, for now she 
saw plainly that through no power of her own could 
she wrest strange favours from fortune. Only the 
power of the old charm could make them hers. She 
remembered it then, and holding fast to the one bead 
in her hand, she repeated, humbly : 

“ ‘ For love’s sweet sake, in my hour of need, 

Blossom and deck me, little seed.’ 

“ Lo, as the words left her lips, the moon shone 
out from behind the clouds above the dark forest. 


THE ENCHANTED NECKLACE. 9 1 

There was a fragrance of lilies all about her, and a 
gossamer gown floated around her, whiter than the 
whiteness of the fairest lily. It was fine, like the 
finest lace that the frost-elves weave, and softer than 
the softest ermine of the snow. On her long golden 
hair gleamed a coronet of pearls. 

“ So beautiful, so dazzling was she as she entered 
the castle door, that the prince came down to meet 
her, and kneeling, kissed her hand, and claimed her 
as his bride. Then came the bishop in his mitre, 
and led her to the throne, and before them all the 
flax-spinner’s maiden was married to the prince, and 
made the Princess Olga. 

“ Then, until the seven days and seven nights were 
done, the revels lasted in the castle. And in the 
merriment the old flax-spinner was again forgotten. 
Her kindness of the past, her loneliness in the 
present, had no part in the thoughts of the Princess 
Olga. 

“ But the beads that had rolled away into the dark- 
ness buried themselves in the earth, and took root 
and sprang up. There at the castle gate they 
bloomed, a strange, strange flower, for on every 
stem hung a row of little bleeding hearts. 

“One day the Princess Olga, seeing them from 
her window, went down to them in wonderment. 


92 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

* What do you here ? ’ she cried, for in her lonely 
forest life she had learned all speech of bird and 
beast and plant. 

“ ‘ We bloom for love’s sweet sake,’ they answered. 

* We have sprung from the old flax-spinner’s gift, — 
the necklace thou didst break and scatter. From her 
heart’s best blood she gave it, and her heart still 
bleeds to think she is forgotten.’ 

“ Then they began to tell the story of the old dame’s 
sacrifices, all the seventy times seven that she had 
made for the sake of the maiden, and Olga grieved as 
she listened, that she could have been so ungrateful. 
Then she brought the prince to listen to the story of 
the strange, strange flowers, and when he had heard, 
together they went to the lowly cottage and fetched 
the old flax-spinner to the castle, there to live out all 
her days. 

“ And still the flowers that we call bleeding hearts 
bloom on by cottage walls and castle gardens, re- 
minding us how often ’tis through hearts that bleed 
for love’s sweet sake we reach our happiness.” 

Betty came to the end of the story and paused, 
smiling, while the Little Colonel, who had listened 
with one arm around her mother’s neck, waited for 
what was to follow. 

Mrs. Sherman took up a little box that had 


THE ENCHANTED NECKLACE. 93 

been lying in her lap under the sewing, and lifted 
something out of the jeweller’s cotton it con- 
tained. 

“ Elizabeth,” she asked, motioning the child toward 
her, “do you suppose the Princess Olga’s necklace 
was anything like this ? ” What she held up was 
a string of little gold beads. 

“Oh, they are almost like mine,” cried Lloyd, 
fingering them admiringly. Before Betty realised 
what was coming, she found them clasped on her 
neck, and Mrs. Sherman was saying : “ It isn’t made 
out of my heart’s blood by any means, and it will not 
lead you to any Prince Charming, but it is my privi- 
lege as godmother to lay a spell on them. Let’s see 
how it will work. Go over to that little trunk of 
yours in the comer, dear, and lay your hand on it. 
Now shut your eyes while you repeat Olga’s charm, 
and see what will happen.” 

Delighted by this dramatising of the old tale, Betty 
scrambled to her feet, ran across the room, and laid 
her hand on top of the shabby little leather trunk. 
Shutting her eyes so tight that her nose wrinkled up 
like a kitten’s, while her mouth smiled broadly, she 
repeated the rhyme : 

“ For love’s sweet sake, in my hour of need, 

Blossom and deck me, little seed ! ” 


94 THE little colonevs house party. 

As she opened her eyes, Lloyd, obeying a whisper 
from her mother, threw back the lid of the trunk. 
All that Betty could utter, as she looked within, was 
a long-drawn cry of surprise : “ Oh-oo-oo ! ” 

There, inside, lay a pile of light summer dresses, 
some white, and the rest in as many tints of pale 
pinks and blues and buffs and lilacs as could be 
found in a bunch of fresh sweet peas. Below 
were glimpses of linen and lace and embroid- 
ery, and in the top tray two pretty hats. One 
trimmed simply with rosettes of ribbon, the other 
a broad-brimmed leghorn with a wreath of forget- 
me-nots. 

One look into Betty’s face was enough reward for 
Mrs. Sherman. It was ample return for all the 
trouble she had taken. What was the money ex- 
pended and the discomforts of that tiresome morning 
that she shopped in town, or the many trips to the 
dressmaker’s, compared to the rapture in Betty’s 
shining eyes ? Mrs. Sherman had never seen such 
happiness, or heard such a gladness in a voice as 
when Betty cried out, Oh, godmother ! Are you a 
witch ? It is too good to be true. I thought I was 
coming to an ordinary house party, and I’ve walked 
straight into a real, live fairy tale ! Oh, I can never 
thank you enough ! Never, never, never.” She 


THE ENCHANTED NECKLACE. 95 

threw her arms around her gbdmother’s neck and 
kissed her again and again. 

Presently leaving Betty to gloat over her treasures 
by herself, Lloyd followed Mrs. Sherman out of the 
room. “ Now I see what you meant, mothah,” she 
said, “ about the different ways of givin’ things. It 
can’t hurt anybody’s pride if you make them feel 
that you give it for love’s sweet sake. That was a 
beautiful way you did it, mothah, and I’ll never 
fo’get it.” 


CHAPTER VII. 


bits from betty’s diary. 

“The Locusts,” June 4, 1900. 

This morning when I sat down at my writing-desk 
to finish a letter to Davy, I found this little blank 
book, bound in white kid, with my initials on the 
back in gold letters. When I first came, godmother 
heard me wishing that I could put a slice of my good 
times away in a box every day, and save it to take 
home and enjoy afterward, as people do fruit-cake 
sometimes, after Christmases and weddings. So she 
has given me this pretty white book, and every day 
while I am in this House Beautiful I shall write 
something in it with this darling little pearl-handled 
pen. 

Even if I should live to be a grandmother, I am 
sure I shall never be too old to enjoy reading the 
account of what we did at this house party. So far 
I am the only guest. The others will be here in a 
few days. They have so much farther to travel than 
I had. 


96 


BITS FROM BETTY y S DIARY. 9 7 

Cousin Hetty would say that I “am eating my 
white bread now,” for it is nothing but play from 
morning until night. 

At first it seemed so strange, — no beds to make, 
no dishes to wash, no churning to do. I like the 
evenings best of all. Then we sit on the porch in 
the twilight, and godmother talks about mamma. 
I never knew anything about her before, for I was so 
little when she died ; but now she seems so real to 
me and so sweet. 

Then we go into the long drawing-room, and the 
wax tapers are lighted. Godmother says she always 
intends to use candle-light in that room, because it 
would spoil some of its quaint old-time charm to use 
modern lights. And she plays on the piano, and 
Lloyd on the harp. Lloyd is only learning, and god- 
mother doesn’t seem to think much of her playing, 
but to me the music they make seems almost 
heavenly. They forget that the only music that I 
am used to hearing, except what the birds make, is 
pumped out of the wheezy little organ at church. 

I could sit up all night to listen to them. It 
makes me feel so strange that I hardly know how to 
describe it, — as if I were away off from everything, 
and high up, where it is wide and open, and where 
the stars are. It makes me want to write. All 


98 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

sorts of beautiful thoughts come to me, that I can 
almost put into words. But they are like will-o’-the- 
wisps. When I get to the place with my rhyme, 
where I saw them shining, they are still beyond my 
reach. 

June 5 th. 

Rob Moore came over to-day, and he and Lloyd 
and I went fishing. 

We carried our lunch with us, and ate it on a big 
rock that sticks up like a sort of island in the middle 
of the creek. We had to take off our shoes and stock- 
ings to wade out to it, and after we got there the rock 
was hardly big enough to hold the basket and all of 
us comfortably. We had to hold fast with one hand 
and grab for our sandwiches with the other. 

It was lots of fun, for Rob and Lloyd kept saying 
such funny things that we laughed all the time. I 
don’t know how it happened, but we got to laughing 
so hard that Lloyd choked on a piece of chicken. 
We began pounding her on the back to help her get 
her breath, and all of a sudden off we went from the 
rock into the creek — kersplash ! 

It wasn’t deep enough to hurt us, but we did look 
so funny when we stood up as wet as three frogs, and 
wiped the water out of our eyes. We laughed so 
hard we could scarcely fish the basket out of the 


BITS FROM BETTY’S DIARY. 


99 


creek and wade to shore. The basket was the only 
thing we caught except a turtle ; Rob got that, and 
Lloyd made him let it go again. 

Of course our tumble into the water ended the 
fishing for to-day, for we all had to hurry home for 
dry clothes. But Rob came back again in the after- 
noon, and he and Lloyd have been giving me my 
first lesson in lawn-tennis. 

June 6th. 

Joyce came to-day on the noon train. She has 
the blue room across the hall from mine. It suits 
her, for she is a blonde like Lloyd, but her hair 
doesn’t curl any. It is just soft and wavy, and hangs 
in two long braids below her waist. Her eyes are 
gray, with long dark lashes, and while she isn’t 
exactly pretty, she has a face that you like to keep 
looking at. It is so bright and jolly, as if she was 
always thinking funny things, and having a good 
time all to herself. 

She came all the way alone, and didn’t mind it a 
bit, although she had to change cars twice, and was 
all night on the sleeping-car. She brought a sketch- 
book in her satchel that is almost full of pictures she 
drew on the train. There is one that is so funny. 
It is the head of an old man, gone to sleep with his 
mouth open. She wrote under that one, “ As others 


IOO THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

see us.” Then she drew two cunning babies playing 
peek-a-boo in the aisle. She called that “ Innocence 
abroad.” There are ever so many more that god- 
mother says are really clever, and remarkably well 
done for a girl of thirteen. I thought they were 
perfect. 

It didn’t take long to get acquainted with Joyce. 
She has been here only a part of a day, and already I 
feel as if I had known her always. 

June 7th. 

It was nearly six o’clock yesterday when Eugenia 
came. Godmother and Lloyd drove down to the sta- 
tion to meet her, but Joyce and I walked up and 
down under the locusts, wondering what she would 
be like. 

We could hardly wait for the carriage to come, we 
were so eager to know. I couldn’t tell what it was 
about her, but somehow, when she stepped out of the 
carriage and shook hands with us, she made me feel 
awkward and shy and out of place. Maybe it was 
because she had such a grown-up manner and seemed 
so young-ladified, although she is only Joyce’s age. 
Then she spoke in such a superior sort of way to her 
maid, when she ordered her to follow up-stairs with 
the satchels. 

They went straight to the green room to dress 


BITS FROM BETTY'S DIARY. 


IOI 


for dinner, and Joyce and I locked arms again, and 
strolled down to the gate. Joyce asked me what I 
thought of her. I told her that I would be thankful 
to the end of time that I got here first. Seeing her 
arrive in such a stylish travelling suit, gloves, and 
Knox hat, and carrying such a handsome leather bag, 
opened my eyes to the way I must have looked when 
I came. It tickled Joyce, the way I described my- 
self, travelling in a sunbonnet and carrying my 
belongings in an old-fashioned willow basket. 

She gave my chin a soft nip and kissed me on 
each cheek, and said, “You funny little Bettykins ! 
As if it made any difference to your friends what 
you wore.” 

I told her I believed it would make a difference to 
Eugenia, and she thought, too, that maybe it might. 
Then I told her I believed that was why godmother 
gave me the enchanted necklace before she came, so 
that I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable. Joyce had not 
heard about the necklace, so I showed her my gold 
beads and told her their story. She thought it was 
lovely of godmother to make the fairy tale come true, 
but she advised me not to tell Eugenia. Girls who 
always travel in private cars and have everything 
they wish for, she said, can’t understand what it 
means to be poor. Then she told me about a box 


102 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY \ 


that her Cousin Kate had sent her, and how good it 
made everybody in the little brown house feel, when 
it came. 

June 8th. 

We had the grandest surprise this morning. Lloyd 
came up to the house soon after breakfast, on Tar- 
baby, leading her mother’s riding horse, a graceful 
little bay mare. Behind her came one of the coloured 
men leading two ponies, so that we could all have a 
ride. The bay mare was for Eugenia, who is a fine 
horsewoman. She learned in a New York riding- 
school. The ponies were for Joyce and me. Mr. 
Sherman had them sent out from Louisville after he 
went away, for us to use all the time we are here. 

One of the ponies is named Calico, because he is 
marked so queerly. His hair grows in such funny 
little streaks and stripes and patches that he looks 
as if he had been painted that way on purpose. He 
was a clown pony in a circus one time, and is sup- 
posed to know a lot of tricks. Joyce wanted him 
because he is so gentle, and she had never ridden 
any before. She didn’t mind his ridiculous looks. 
So Lad fell to my share, — a pretty brown one that 
is as easy as a rocking-horse after the stiff-jointed 
old farm-horses that I am used to bouncing around 
on at home. 


BITS FROM BETTY'S DIARY. 103 

They were all ready to start, so we went galloping 
down to Judge Moore’s after Rob, and the five of us 
raced all over the valley till nearly lunch-time. It 
was grand. The dust flew, and people ran to the 
windows when we went by, as if we had been a 
circus. 

We did have a sort of circus when we passed by 
Taylor’s grove. A Butchers’ Union had come out 
from town for a big picnic, and they had a brass band 
with them. It struck up a waltz just as we reached 
the grove, and Joyce’s pony, Calico, began turning 
around and around as if he had lost his senses. 
Joyce screamed and threw her arms around his neck, 
frightened almost to death until Rob called out that 
Calico was dancing, and for her to hang on and see 
what he would do. What he did was to stand on his 
hind legs and dump Joyce off into the middle of the 
road. 

She sat there in the dust, too astonished to move, 
until Rob helped her up, and then they both leaned 
against the fence to laugh at Calico’s antics. He 
was so funny. He kept up his performances until 
the music stopped. Then he walked over to Rob 
and held up his fore foot to shake hands, as if he 
wanted to be congratulated. The music of the band 
seemed to have brought back all his old tricks to his 


104 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

memory. I didn’t suppose that Joyce would mount 
him again, but she did. Rob called to the men and 
asked them please not to play again until we were 
out of hearing, and we rode off. 

June 9 th. 

I don’t believe that I could ever love Eugenia very 
dearly, because she makes me feel uncomfortable so 
often. She has a way of looking down on you that 
would rile anybody. But she is a fascinating sort of 
girl, when she wants to be friendly and entertaining. 
We have been in her room all morning, listening to 
her talk. 

It must be grand to live in one of the biggest 
hotels in the world, and see all the sights she sees. 
I imagine it is a sort of a palace. She showed us the 
picture of her three best friends at school. It is 
in a big silver locket set with sapphires, and hangs 
over a corner of her mirror. We heard a great deal 
of them this morning. She seems to think more of 
that Mollie and Fay and Kell than she does of her 
father. 

It is funny that when you are with Eugenia you 
can’t help feeling the same way she does about what 
she’s telling ; that it is right to break the rules and 
skip recitations and torment the teachers and play 
jokes on the girls not in their set. She seems to 


BITS FROM BETTY'S DIARY. 105 

have a great influence over Lloyd. I don’t believe 
godmother would like it if she knew how much. 
Already Lloyd has promised to tease her father and 
mother into letting her go to New York next fall, to 
enter Eugenia’s school. She told us that it is very 
select, and said, “ You know sometimes schools that 
advertise themselves as being awfully select are no 
better than those horrid public schools, for they take 
anybody who applies, no matter how common they 
are.” 

Joyce asked her why she called public schools 
horrid, and she answered in such a disgusted, patron- 
ising way, “ Oh, nobody who is anybody would go to 
a public school.” 

That made Joyce mad, and she told her that she 
went to one and that she was proud of it ; that 
where she lived public schools were considered better 
than the private ones. They had better teachers 
and more progressive methods ; and she said she 
wouldn’t give up the Plainsville High School for all 
the select seminaries in New York. 

Then Eugenia drawled in such a bored tone, “ Oh, 
wouldnt you ! Well, maybe you wouldn’t, being 
from the West, you know. I’ve always heard it 
spoken of out there as wild and woolly, and I suppose 
it is all a matter of taste.” 


10 6 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

Then she gave a provoking little laugh, and began 
to hum a tune, as if public schools and people who 
went to them were too common for her to think 
about. Joyce looked out of the window with a sort 
of don’t-care expression, and said something in 
French. Of course I couldn’t understand it, but she 
told me afterward that it was a well-known proverb 
about the opinion of a wise fool. 

Eugenia was so astonished ! She did not know that 
Joyce can speak French. She has a way of using it 
herself all the time when she talks. She is always 
throwing in a French word or sentence that Lloyd 
and I can’t understand. Joyce laughed about it to 
me the first day she came, and said Eugenia is just 
as apt to use the wrong word as the right one. This 
was the first time that Joyce had spoken French, and 
Eugenia was so surprised she couldn’t help showing 
it, and asked her why she had never said anything 
before in that language. Joyce told her that her 
teacher never allowed her to mix the languages. She 
said it was in bad taste to do so in speaking to 
people who only understood one ; that it seemed 
affected, or as if the person wanted to show off how 
much she knew. 

Then that made Eugenia mad, and she asked her 
in a spiteful way if it was a public school teacher 


BITS FROM BE TTY'S DIARY. 10 7 

that told her that, and said she didn’t know that they 
taught French out West. Joyce said yes, that they 
did, but that of course a year abroad was quite a 
help, and that before she left France they told her 
that her accent was quite Parisian. 

That took the wind out of Eugenia’s sails. She 
did not know that Joyce had been abroad. She is 
crazy to go herself, but that is the one thing that 
her father will not humour her in. He says that she 
must wait until she is older, and he has time to go 
with her himself. All her friends have been, and it 
seemed to mortify her that Joyce was ahead of her 
there. She hasn’t put on any airs with Joyce since, 
although she still does with me. 

This is a great deal of nonsense to write in my 
“ Good times ” book, but I have put it in to explain 
why we have paired off as we have. Joyce and I 
go together now, and Eugenia and Lloyd. Eugenia 
flatters her all the time, and never says hateful things 
to her as she does to us, and Lloyd thinks that 
Eugenia is perfection. 

Some letters came this afternoon, — a whole hand- 
ful for Eugania, written on handsome linen paper and 
sealed with pretty monogram seals. I had a letter, too. 
The first one since I have been here. It was from 
Davy, and printed in big tipsy letters that straggled 


108 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

all over the page. There were only a few lines, but 
I knew how long the little fellow must have worked 
over them, gripping the pencil tight in his hard little 
fist. I was so proud of it, Davy’s first letter, that I 
passed it around for the girls to see. Lloyd and 
Joyce were interested and amused, and laughed as I 
had done over the dear crooked letters ; but Eugenia 
was in one of her high and mighty moods, and she 
only lifted those black eyebrows in that indifferent 
way of hers, and tossed it back. 

“ What awfully queer letter-paper/* she said. 
“Ruled ! I didn’t know that anybody ever wrote on 
ruled paper nowadays, but servants. Eliot always 
does, but it’s so common to use it, you know.” 

I could hardly keep the tears back to have her 
make fun of poor little Davy’s letter. For a few 
minutes I was so homesick that I wished I was back 
with Davy in the plain old farmhouse, where it 
doesn’t make any difference whether there are lines 
on your paper or not, or any such silly things as that. 
Everybody uses ruled paper there, for that matter, 
because Squire Jaynes doesn’t sell any other kind. 
What difference does it make, anyhow, I should like 
to know ? 

I went off to my own room with the letter, and 
Joyce followed me and found me crying. She, made 


BITS FROM BETTY'S DIARY. IO9 

a face out of the window at Eugenia, and told me 
never to mind what anybody said. There was a big 
wide world outside of Eugenia’s set with its silly airs 
and graces, and sensible people made fun of them. 
Then she offered to illustrate my answer to Davy’s 
letter, and drew a picture of Calico and Lad at the 
top of the page, and Lloyd’s parrot at the bottom. 
That reminded me to tell him some funny things the 
parrot had said, and in writing them I got over my 
homesickness. 

Eugenia has a crest on her paper, because some 
one of her great-great-great-grandfathers, almost back 
to Noah, was a lord. But it doesn’t make her remem- 
ber to act like a lady. She ought to be made to 
learn jthe lines that were in my copy-book once : 

“ Kind hearts are more than coronets, 

And simple faith than Norman blood.” 




CHAPTER VIII. 


THE GYPSY FORTUNE-TELLER. 

There had fallen a pause in the round of merry- 
makings. After a week of picnics and fishing-parties, 
lawn fetes and tennis tournaments, there came a day 
for which no special entertainment had been planned. 
It was a hot morning, and the girls were out under 
the trees : Betty in the swing, with a book in her 
lap, as usual, Joyce on a camp-stool near by, making 
a sketch of her, and Eugenia swinging idly in a 
hammock. 

The Little Colonel had been swinging with her, 
but something had called her to the house, and a 
deep silence fell on the little group after her depar- 
ture. Betty, lost in her book, and Joyce, intent on 
her sketch, did not seem to notice it, but presently 
Eugenia sat up in the hammock and gave her pillow 
an impatient thump. 

“Whew! how deadly stupid it is here ! ” she 
exclaimed. “ I’m glad that I don’t have to live in the 
country the year round! Nothing to do — nothing 


no 


mm 



“m’m glad that i don’t have to live in the country 

! ’ ” 


THE YEAR ROUND 






































































































































* 




































% 















































THE GYPSY FORTUNE-TELLER. 


1 1 1 


to see — I’d turn to a vegetable in a little while and 
strike root. I wish something exciting would happen, 
for I’m bored stiff.” 

Betty looked up from her story in astonishment. 
“ Why, I think it is lovely here ! ” she cried. “ I’d 
never get tired of Locust in a hundred years ! ” 

Eugenia smiled, a pitying, amused sort of smile 
that brought a flush to Betty’s cheek. There was 
a tinge of a sneer in it that seemed to say, “ Oh, you 
poor thing, of course you like it. You have never 
known any better.” 

Betty’s eyes went back to her book again. Eu- 
genia, thrusting one little foot from a mass of pink 
ruffles, gave an impatient push against the ground 
with the toe of her slipper, which set the hammock 
to swinging violently. 

“ Ho-hum ! ” she yawned, discontently. “ I wish 
that we could go down to the gypsy camp that we 
passed yesterday.” 

“So do I,” agreed Joyce. “It looked so pic- 
turesque with the tents and the white covered 
wagons, and that old crone bending over the camp- 
fire. I know a woman at home who had her fortune 
told by a gypsy, and every single thing that was told 
her came true.” 

“ I wonder how they can tell,” said Eugenia. 


1 12 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

“ By the lines in their hands. It is as plain as the 
alphabet to some people. They can tell how long 
you’re going to live, whether you’ll be married or 
not, and what sort of a future you’re to have. They 
say that there are some lines in your hand that mean 
wealth, and some health, and there are stars for 
success and crosses for losses and all sorts of signs.” 

“Oh, how interesting!” cried Betty, again pausing 
in her story, and spreading out her little brown hands, 
to examine them. Eugenia held up one of her slim 
palms, and studied it intently, tracing the lines with 
a tapering white forefinger. 

“ Here’s a star in my hand,” she cried, excitedly, 
“ and all sorts of queer lines and marks that I never 
noticed before. I wonder which is the marriage line. 
Oh, girls, I’m just wild to have my fortune told. 
Let’s ride down to the camp before lunch.” 

“Costs too much,” said Joyce, holding her sketch 
off at arm’s length and studying the effect through 
half-shut eyes. “Rob Moore said that his brother 
Edward went over to the camp with a party, several 
nights ago, and they had to pay a dollar apiece. That 
bars me out, for dollars don’t grow on bushes at my 
house. Besides, Bob said his brother said that they 
are not real gypsies. The people around here think 
they are a set of strolling horse thieves. Mister 


THE G YPSY FORTUNE - TELLER. 1 1 3 

Edward says that the old woman looks like a Florida 
cracker, and talks like one too, but she vows that she 
is the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter and 
was born on the banks of the Nile.” 

“That settles it!” cried Eugenia, “I am going.” 
She turned the sparkling rings on her finger and 
watched them reflect the light as she spoke. “ We’ll 
all go. It will be my treat. I haven’t touched my 
allowance since I’ve been here, and papa gave me 
ten dollars more than usual this month. There isn’t 
any place to spend money here but at the grocery 
and meat shop, and it’s burning a hole in my purse. 
Only four dollars for all of us. That isn’t very 
much.” 

“ Only four dollars,” thought Betty, lifting startled 
eyes, and thinking of the five nickels with which she 
had set forth on her journey. It seemed a fortune. 

“ Say that you will go,” insisted Eugenia. “I’ll 
think you’re mean things if you don’t, for it will give 
me more pleasure to take you than anything I can 
possibly think of.” 

“Yes, I’ll be glad to go,” said Joyce. “It is 
awfully sweet of you to stand treat, Eugenia.” 

“I think so, too,” exclaimed Betty, adding her 
thanks. Joyce rose, gathering up her sketching 
materials. 


f 


1 14 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

“Are you going to the house?” asked Eugenia. 
“ Then ask Lloyd if she won’t send word to Alec to 
saddle the ponies, and tell her we want her to take 
a short ride with us before lunch. Don’t say where 
we are going. We’ll surprise her.” 

“All right,” answered Joyce, moving off down the 
path. 

“And Joyce,” called Eugenia after her, “please 
tell Eliot to brush my hat and put some new laces 
in my boots. I’ll be there by the time the ponies 
are at the house. Don’t. you think it will be fun ? ” 
she added, turning to Betty, when they were left 
alone. In the role of Lady Bountiful she felt very 
friendly and gracious. 

“Yes, indeed!” cried Betty. “I think it will be 
perfectly lovely. It is so generous of you, Eugenia, 
to spend so much for our pleasure ! ” 

“Oh, that’s nothing,” answered^Eugenia, loftily. 
“ Plenty more where that came from.” 

On the way to the house, Joyce met Mrs. Sherman 
driving toward her in a dog-cart. “ Do you want to 
drive down to the post-office with me ? ” she asked. 
“There is room for one more.” 

Joyce shook her head and walked on, singing gaily, 
over her shoulder, “ Other fish to fry, so it can’t be I. 
Thank you kindly, ma’am ! ” 


THE GYPSY FORTUNE - TELLER. 1 1 5 

“ Eugenia, Elizabeth, do either of you want to go ? ” 
Mrs. Sherman asked, stopping the dog-cart beside 
the hammock. 

“No, I believe not, thank you,” said Eugenia, 
languidly. “It’s so hot this morning.” 

Betty’s mouth and eyes both opened in astonish- 
ment at the excuse Eugenia gave, and her godmother 
smiled at the sight. 

“Well, Elizabeth,” she said, playfully, “I see that 
you are not going to leave me in the lurch. I knew 
that I wouldn’t have to go begging far for company.” 

“Oh, I’d love to go, godmother,” cried Betty, “if 
it was only any other time. But I’ve just been in- 
vited to ride over to the gypsy camp with the girls.” 

“To the gypsy camp!” echoed Mrs. Sherman, in 
surprise. “ Why are you going there ? ” 

“To have our fortunes told,” answered the unsus- 
picious child, adding, gratefully, “Isn’t it good of 
Eugenia ? She is going to pay for all of us.” 

A smothered exclamation broke from Eugenia’s 
lips, and she darted an angry look at Betty. There 
was a shadow of annoyance on Mrs. Sherman’s face 
as she saw it. 

“But you mustn’t go there,” she said. “I am 
sorry to have to disappoint you, but I couldn’t think 
for a moment of allowing Lloyd to go there. They 


I 1 6 THE LITTLE CO LONE US HOUSE PARTY. 

are a rough, low set of people, — gamblers and horse 
thieves. It wouldn’t be proper for you little girls to 
go near them. I intended to mention the matter to 
Lloyd when I first heard that they had camped in the 
Valley, and tell her to avoid taking you on any of the 
roads leading to the camp. But I forgot it until you 
had ridden away. It would have worried me all the 
time you were out had I not known that Lloyd is a 
discreet child for her age, and she heard so much 
said about them when they were here last summer. 
I have never thought to mention it since that first 
day.” 

“ I’m so sorry,” said Eugenia ; “I had set my heart 
on having my fortune told.” 

“ Mrs. Sherman tapped the wheel of the dog-cart 
with the lash of her whip, and sat considering. Pres- 
ently she said, “ Of course there isn’t any truth in 
the fortunes they tell. One person knows just as 
much about the future as another. But I am sorry 
for your disappointment, for I know at your age such 
things are entertaining. How would it do for me to 
call at Miss Allison MacIntyre’s while I am out, and 
ask her to come up to dinner to-night ? She is a 
great friend of mine and knows enough about palm- 
istry to tell some very interesting fortunes. She can 
amuse young people better than any one I ever knew. 


THE G YPSY FOR TUNE - TELLER. 1 1 7 

Her two nephews, Malcolm and Keith MacIntyre, 
came out from Louisville for a short visit yesterday, 
and I’ll invite them, too. They are jolly boys, and 
I’m sure you will find them far more entertaining 
than any of the gypsies. What do you say to that 
plan ? Will it make up for the disappointment ? ” 
“Yes, indeed!” answered Betty, and Eugenia 
smiled her approval, for she had heard Lloyd talk 
about the MacIntyre boys, and had been hoping to 
see them. But when Mrs. Sherman had driven on, 
she turned to Betty with an angry face. 

“Tattletale,” she said, in a sneering tone. “Why 
did you go and spoil everything ? If you had kept 
still we could have gone and nobody would have been 
the wiser. Now it will be no end of trouble to get 
there without her finding it out.” 

“You don’t mean that you are going after all that 
godmother has said ? ” cried Betty, with a look of 
horror in her big brown eyes. “ Why, a wild Arab 
wouldn’t treat his host with such disrespect as that 
after he’d eaten his salt.” 

Eugenia’s black eyes flashed dangerously. “Yes, 
Miss Prunes and Prisms, I am going, I don’t care 
what you say. I have made up my mind to have 
my fortune told by the seventh daughter of a seventh 
daughter, that was born on the banks of the Nile, 


II 8 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t 
make me change it again. It is foolish of Cousin 
Elizabeth to be so particular, and I am going to do 
as I please. I always do at home, no matter what 
papa says. I’ve never had to mind anybody all my 
life, and I’ll certainly not begin it now that I am in 
my teens. It is all nonsense about it not being 
proper for us to go to the camp. Cousin Elizabeth is 
mighty nice and sweet, but she’s an old fogy to talk 
that way. And she needn’t think she has stopped 
me. I may not get there to-day, but I’ll go to that 
camp before I go back to New York if it’s the last 
thing I do.” 

She sprang out of the hammock and walked 
haughtily down the path, her head held high, and 
her pink ruffles switching angrily from side to side. 
Betty followed at a safe distance, reaching the house 
in time to see Joyce and Lloyd come down, ready for 
their ride. She would have made some excuse to 
stay at home if she thought that Eugenia intended 
to carry out her plans at once ; but thinking she 
would surely not attempt it until a later day, she 
mounted with the others and started down the 
avenue. 

At the gate, as they turned into the public road, 
they spied a noisy little cavalcade racing down the 


THE G YPS Y FOR TUNE - TELLER. 1 1 9 

pike toward them. Rob Moore led the charge, and 
two strangers were following hard behind. 

“It’s the MacIntyre boys,” exclaimed the Little 
Colonel, shading her eyes with her hand and then 
half turning in her saddle to explain to the girls. 
“ It’s Malcolm and Keith. You’ll like them. They 
stayed out heah with their grandmothah one whole 
wintah, and they used to come up to ou’ house lots. 
You remembah I told you ’bout them. They bought 
that pet beah from a tramp and neahly frightened me 
to death at their valentine pahty. I went into a 
dahk room, where it was tied up, and didn’t know it 
was theah till it stood up on its hind feet and came 
at me. I neahly lost my mind, I was so sca’d.” 

“ Oh, yes,” cried Joyce. “ I saw their pictures, 
all dressed up like little knights when they were in 
the tableaux.” She surveyed them with great inter- 
est as the cloud of dust they were raising rapidly 
drew nearer. 

“ Which one was it ran away with you in a hand- 
car, and nearly let the locomotive run over you ? ” 
asked Betty. 

“ That was Keith, the youngest one. He is on the 
black hawse.” 

“ And which one gave you the silver arrow ? ” 
asked Eugenia. 


120 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

“ Malcolm,” answered the Little Colonel, putting 
up her hand to feel the little pin that fastened her 
sailor collar. 

“ Oh, she’s got it on now ! ” exclaimed Eugenia, 
turning to laugh over her shoulder at the other girls. 
“ See how red her face is. I believe he is her sweet- 
heart.” 

“ It’s no such a thing ! ” cried the Little Colonel, 
angrily. “ Eugenia Forbes, you are the biggest 
goose I evah saw ! Mothah says it’s silly for chil- 
dren to talk about havin’ sweethea’ts. We are just 
good friends.” 

“It isn’t silly!” insisted Eugenia. “I have two 
sweethearts who send me flowers and candy, and 
write me notes, and they are just as jealous of each 
other as they can be.” 

“Then I’d be ashamed to brag of it,” cried the 
Little Colonel, angry that her mother’s opinion had 
been so flatly contradicted. But there was no time 
for a quarrel. The boys had come up with them, 
and Lloyd had to make the necessary introductions. 
Eugenia thought she had never seen two handsomer 
boys, or any one with more courtly manners, and as 
Malcolm rode along beside her, she wished that Mollie 
and Fay and Kell could see her knightly escort. 

Joyce and Keith followed, and Betty and Rob 


THE G YPS Y FOR TUNE - TELLER. 


121 


brought up the rear. The Little Colonel led the 
way. At the station she turned, saying, “ Which 
way do you all want to go ? ” 

“ Have you ever been down by the gypsy camp ? ” 
asked Malcolm. “ We boys passed that way a little 
while ago, and they were playing on banjos and 
dancing, and having a fine old time. It’s quite a 
sight.” 

“ Oh, yes, let’s go ! ” cried Eugenia. “ I’m wild 
to see it and have my fortune told. Joyce and I 
were talking about it a little while before we started. 
You want to go, don’t you, Joyce?” she called back 
over her shoulder. 

“What’s that?” she answered. “To the gypsy 
camp ? Of course. I thought that that was where 
we had decided to go when we started.” 

She had been in the house when Mrs. Sherman 
had discussed the matter with Eugenia and Betty, 
and was wholly unconscious that there was any ob- 
jection to their going. 

“I’m' afraid mothah might not want us to go,” said 
Lloyd. “ Maybe it would be bettah to wait until 
anothah day and ask her.” 

Rob and Betty had fallen a little behind the others, 
having spied a bunch of four-leafed clovers, and Rob 
had dismounted to pick them, so they did not hear 


122 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

the discussion that followed. Lloyd was not willing 
to go without her mother’s permission, remembering 
what had been said about the camp the previous 
summer, but Eugenia had her way as she usually 
did. Her influence over Lloyd was growing stronger 
every day. 

Busily talking with Rob, as they followed along, 
Betty did not notice where they were going, until 
the strumming of a banjo and loud singing drew her 
attention to the fact that they were almost upon the 
gypsy camp. 

“ Oh, we mustn’t go in here ! ” she called, in alarm, 
seeing that the other girls were dismounting, and the 
boys were hitching their ponies along the fence. 

“Why?” asked Joyce, pausing in the act of 
springing from the saddle. 

“ Godmother said we mustn’t. Not an hour ago, 
she said it wasn’t a proper place for us, and that she 
wouldn’t think for a moment of allowing Lloyd to 
come. When she saw that we were disappointed, 
she planned an entertainment for us to-night, and 
we agreed to it, both of us, Eugenia and I. Eugenia 
knows she did.” 

There were some very curious glances exchanged 
in the little group, and the boys drew to one side, 
leaving the girls to settle the matter between them. 


THE GYPSY FORTUNE-TELLER. 123 

Eugenia darted a glance at Betty that would have 
withered her if it could. 

“ For goodness’ sake don’t make such an everlast- 
ing fuss about nothing,” she exclaimed. “ Come on ; 
it will be all right.” 

“But Eugenia,” interrupted Lloyd, “if mothah 
said I couldn’t go that settles it.” 

“ She didn’t tell you, did she ? ” asked Eugenia. 

“ No, but if she told you, it is just the same.” 

“ But she didn’t tell me,” persisted Eugenia, grown 
desperate to carry out her own wishes, and not stop- 
ping at the truth. “ I’ll tell you how it was.” 

Putting an arm around Lloyd, she drew her aside. 
“ It is all Elizabeth’s imagination,” she protested, in a 
low tone. “ I never saw such a little silly for making 
mountains out of mole-hills. She is such a ’fraid- 
cat that she wouldn’t look behind her if a fly buzzed. 
Now you know, Lloyd, that, as particular as I am, I 
wouldn’t think of going anywhere that wasn’t proper, 
any more than your mother would. I’ll take the 
responsibility. I’m sure I am old enough, and it’s all 
right for us to go when three big boys are with us.” 

The others could not hear what passed between the 
two. Eugenia coaxed and wheedled and sneered by 
turns, and finally Lloyd yielded, and they all started 
in. All but Betty. She waited in the lane alone, 


124 THE LITTLE CO lone vs house party. 

riding up and down, up and down, for ages it seemed 
to her, waiting for them to come back. 

In reality it was not quite an hour that she kept 
her solitary vigil in the lane. As she rode back and 
forth she could catch glimpses of Eugenia’s pink 
dress inside the tent, where they were all gathered 
around the old fortune-teller. Now and then she 
heard voices and laughter, and it gave her such a 
lonely, left-out feeling that she could scarcely keep 
back the tears. She knew that the others thought 
she was fussy and overparticular, and that helped to 
make her thoroughly uncomfortable. 

The fretful wail of a sick baby sounded at intervals 
from the tent. The banjo-playing had stopped on 
their arrival. It was nearly noon when the six 
children came straggling out of the tent. 

“ I wouldn’t have missed it for anything ! ” said 
Eugenia, triumphantly. “ Betty was a goose not to go, 
wasn’t she? Why, Betty, she told me my whole 
past, and even described the three girls I go with at 
school. I am to have a long life and lots of money, 
and to be married twice. And she told me to beware 
of a fleshy, dark person with black eyes, who is 
jealous of me and will try to do me harm.” 

“What did she tell you, Joyce?” asked Betty, 
eagerly, feeling that she had missed the great oppor- 


THE GYPSY FORTUNE-TELLER. 125 

t unity of her life for lifting the veil that hid her 
future. 

“She said that I had been across a big body of 
water and was going again, but the rest was a lot 
of stuff that I didn’t believe and can’t remember.” 

“ She didn’t give me a dollar’s worth of fortune,” 
complained Rob. “Not by a long shot.” He had 
paid his own way and now thought regretfully of the 
two circuses to which the squandered dollar might 
have admitted him. 

“ Let’s not tell anybody we’ve been here,” sug- 
gested Eugenia as they started homeward. “ It will 
make it so much more romantic, to keep it a secret. 
We can wait and see what comes true, and tell each 
other years afterward.” 

“ But I always tell mothah everything,” cried the 
Little Colonel, in surprise. “ She would enjoy hearing 
the funny fortunes the old woman told us, and I’m 
suah if she knew how sick that poah baby is she’d send 
it something. She is always helpin’ poah people.” 

“But I have a special reason for keeping it a 
secret,” urged Eugenia. “ Promise not to say any- 
thing about it for awhile anyhow. Wait till I am 
ready to go home.” 

“ Why ? ” asked Lloyd, with a puzzled expression. 

“ She’s afraid for godmother to know,” said Betty, 


126 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

unable to control her tongue any longer, and still 
smarting with the recollection of some of the things 
with which Eugenia had answered her refusal to go 
into the camp with them. 

“ It is no such a thing ! ” cried Eugenia. “ It was 
all right for us to go, and I’ve a private reason of my 
own for not saying anything about it for awhile. It 
is a very little thing to ask, and I’m sure that, as a 
guest of Lloyd’s, it is a very little thing for her to 
do, to respect my wishes that much.” 

“ Oh,’ of course, if you put it that way,” said Lloyd, 
“ I’ll not say anything about it till you tell me that I 
can.” 

“ You boys don’t mind promising, either, do you ? ” 
asked Eugenia, flashing a smile of her black eyes at 
each one in turn. 

“ Cross your hearts,” she cried, laughing, as they 
gave their promise, “ and swear * Really truly, blackly, 
bluely, lay me down and cut me in twoly,’ that you 
won’t tell.” 

Joyce laughingly followed the boys’ example, and 
Eugenia gave a significant smile toward Betty, rid- 
ing on alone in dignified silence. “Then it is all 
right,” she exclaimed, loud enough for her to hear, 
“ that is, if Miss Goody-goody doesn’t feel it her duty 
to run and tell.” 


THE G YPSY FOR TUNE - TELLER. 1 2 7 

Betty was too angry to make any answer. She 
rode on with her cheeks burning and her head held 
high. Mrs. Sherman was sitting in the wide, cool 
hall when the little party stopped at the steps. The 
boys had ridden down the avenue, too, and dismounted 
to speak to her. 

“ I have left invitations for you all to come to din- 
ner to-night,” she said, as Malcolm and Keith came 
up to shake hands. “Your Aunt Allison has con- 
sented to play fortune-teller for us. Have you ever 
had your fortune told, Rob ? You are to come, too.” 

“ Yes, once,” answered Rob, cautiously, catching 
a warning look from Eugenia. “ It wasn’t very satis- 
factory, though, and I’ll be glad to try it again.” 

Such a flush had spread over the Little Colonel’s 
face that Mrs. Sherman noticed it. “ I am afraid 
you have ridden too far in this noonday heat, little 
daughter,” she said. “ You’d better go up-stairs 
and bathe your face.” 

The boys took their leave, and Lloyd escaped from 
her mother’s watchful eyes to follow her advice. 
When she came down to lunch, the flush was gone 
from her cheeks, but there was an uncomfortable 
pricking of her conscience that stayed with her all 
that afternoon, and deepened steadily after Miss 
Allison’s arrival. 


CHAPTER IX. 


HER SACRED PROMISE. 

The fortune-telling began immediately after din- 
ner. Miss Allison sat one side of a screen, and one 
by one the palms were thrust through a narrow open- 
ing for her to examine. Mrs. Sherman sat beside 
her, so neither of them saw the amused glances the 
children exchanged behind the screen, whenever her 
prophecies contradicted what the old gypsy had told 
them. 

“ I can judge of your chief characteristics by your 
hands,” she said, “and it is wonderful how much 
palmistry reveals in that way; but I shall have to 
draw on my imagination for your future fortunes.” 
This she did in such a bright amusing way that 
screams of laughter went up from behind the screen, 
and the hands she held often shook with merriment. 

Not having had the experience of the gypsy tent, 
Betty awaited her turn with more interest than the 
others, and thrust her little brown hand through the 
128 


HER SACRED PROMISE. 


I29 


opening, half afraid. She wondered what secrets it 
would tell Miss Allison, who, in addition to all the 
pleasant, complimentary things she had told, had 
added some very plain truths. Eugenia’s hand, she 
said, showed its owner to be extravagant and wilful ; 
Malcolm’s, vain and overbearing ; Keith’s, disorderly ; 
and Rob’s, lacking in judgment. 

Miss Allison held Betty’s hand a moment, not cer- 
tain to whom it belonged, although she might have 
guessed, considering how brown and hardened by 
work it was. “ Too sensitive and too imaginative by 
far,” she said. “But I like this little hand. It will 
always be faithful in little things as well as big, and 
will keep its promises to the utmost. It is a hand 
that can be trusted.” 

Betty’s face shone. What Miss Allison had said 
pleased her more than the fortune which followed, 
although it foretold a long life full of as many inter- 
esting happenings as if she had Aladdin’s wonderful 
lamp to use as she chose. She looked at her hand 
with a new interest after she had withdrawn it from 
the screen, and Keith found her studying it again 
after the fortune-telling was done, and the others had 
gone into the drawing-room. 

Eugenia sat at the piano, Lloyd twanged on the 
harp, while Joyce tuned her mandolin and Malcolm 


130 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

his banjo. Rob lolled in an open window, listening, 
and beating time with both feet. Mrs. Sherman and 
Miss Allison were down at the far end of the wide 
porch, where the moonlight was stealing through the 
vines and shimmering on the floor. 

It was on the porch steps that Keith found Betty 
looking at her hands again, as they lay spread out on 
her lap, and studying their lines by^ moonlight. He 
sat down beside her. 

“ How does your Aunt Allison know ? ” she asked, 
without looking up. “ It seems like some sort of 4 
witches’ work to me, the way she guessed things 
about the rest of you; and I suppose it’s just as true 
what she said about me, — at least the part about 
being too "sensitive and imaginative is true, I know. 
Cousin Hetty says I go about with my head in the 
clouds half the time. I would love to think that 
the other part is true, too. She said it in such a 
sweet solemn sort of a way, as if she laid some kind 
of a spell on my hand that was not to be broken. 

‘ It will keep its promises to the utmost,’ she said, and 
I feel that it will have to do it now, just because she 
said so.” 

“That is Aunt Allison’s way,” answered Keith. 

“ Nobody knows how much she has helped Malcolm 
and me by giving us these, and expecting us to live 


HER SACRED PROMISE . 131 

up to them.” He touched a little badge on the lapel 
of his coat, as he spoke. It was a tiny flower of 
white enamel, with a little diamond in the centre, 
like a drop of dew. 

“What is that for?” asked Betty, curiously. “I 
have been wondering why you and your brother both 
wear them.” 

“ Aunt Allison gave them to us. She calls us her 
two little knights, and this is the badge of our knight- 
hood, * wearing the white flower of a blameless life.’ 

m 

It began one time when we were out at grand- 
mother’s all winter. We gave a benefit for a little 
tramp, who came very near being burned to death 
in a cabin on the place. We had tableaux, you 
know, and Malcolm and I were knights in one of 
them.” 

“ Oh, I know,” interrupted Betty, eagerly. “ I’ve 
seen your picture taken in that costume, and it is 
lovely.” 

“ And then Aunt Allison explained all about King 
Arthur and his Round Table, and gave us the motto : 
‘ Live pure, speak truth, right the wrong, honour the 
king, else wherefore born ? ’ ” 

Betty repeated it softly. “ How lovely ! ” she ex- 
claimed, in a low tone. All the instruments were 
going now in the drawing-room, — harp, mandolin, 


132 THE little colonels house party. 

piano, and banjo, and the music floated out sweetly 
on the night air to the earnest little couple on the 
steps. And the music, and the moonlight, and 
Betty’s sympathetic little face, made it easy for 
Keith to grow confidential just then, and speak of 
things that usually make boys shy. He told her 
of his ambition to live up to his knightly motto, 
and of some of his boyish efforts to right the wrong 
in the big world about him, and all that he hoped 
to do when he was grown, and was free to use the 
money his grandfather had left him. 

“ I wish I could be a knight,” sighed Betty to her- 
self, moved to large ambitions by the boy’s words, 
and discontented with her own small sphere. How 
manly he looked in the moonlight, his handsome face 
aglow with the thought of his noble purposes ! 

“ It’s funny,” said Keith, looking down at her, 
“ you’re the only person that I ever talked to 
about such things, but Aunt Allison. You seem 
to understand in the same way that she does. I 
believe you’d have made a good knight yourself if 
you had lived in those days, because that is one of 
the things they had to vow, to keep a promise to the 
utmost.” 

Betty smiled happily, but made no answer. Rob 
joined them just then, and they fell to talking of 


HER SACRED PROMISE. 


133 


childish things again, — games and pets, and things 
they had done, and places they had been. Next 
morning in her “ Good times ” book, Betty carefully 
wrote every word she could remember that Keith had 
said the evening before, about knights and knightly 
deeds. It was a half-hour that she loved to think 
about. 

Miss Allison had invited them all to a picnic at the 
old mill on the following day. They were to go in 
the afternoon' and come back by moonlight. It was 
not quite four o’clock when Mrs. Sherman stepped 
into the carriage at the door, followed by Eliot with 
an armful of wraps, which might be needed later in 
the evening. Every spare inch of the carriage was 
packed with things for the picnic. A huge lunch 
hamper stood on the front seat beside the coachman, 
and he could scarcely find room for his feet for the 
big freezer of ice-cream that took up so much space. 
Rugs, cushions, and camp-stools were tucked in at 
every corner, and Mrs. Sherman held Joyce’s man- 
dolin in her lap. 

“ Oh, girls ! ” she called, leaning out of the carriage 
and looking up at the second story windows. “ Can 
I trust one of you to post the letter that I have left 
on the hall table ? ” 

Two bright faces appeared at the same instant at 


134 THE little colonels house party. 

different windows, and two voices called in the same 
breath, one answering, “Yes, godmother,” and the 
other, “ Yes, Cousin Elizabeth.” 

“I would take it myself,” said Mrs. Sherman, “if 
I were going past the post-office, but I have to drive 
a roundabout way to the Ross place, to get some 
berries I engaged for the picnic. It is very impor- 
tant that the letter should go on to-night’s mail train, 
and if one of you will drop it in the box as you go by, 
I’ll be so much obliged.” 

“ Yes’m, I’ll do it,” answered each girl again, almost 
in the same breath. With a nod and a smile to them, 
Mrs. Sherman told Alec to drive on. The ponies, 
already saddled and bridled, were waiting in front of 
the house. The girls were to ride by the MacIntyre 
place and escort Miss Allison’s carriage to the picnic- 
ground, and had promised to be there at four, but the 
hall clock struck the hour before the last dress was 
buttoned and the last ribbon tied. 

“ Do you heah that ? ” cried the Little Colonel, in 
a panic of haste, as the musical chime sounded through 
the house. “ It will nevah do to keep Miss Allison 
waitin’ ! Come on ! ” she exclaimed, adding, as she 
flew through the upper hall, “The last one down the 
stairs is a pop-eyed monkey ! ” 

“ I’m not it ! ” shrieked Joyce, racing past her. 


HER SACRED PROMISE . 1 35 

“ I’m not it ! ” echoed Betty, darting ahead of them 
both, and reaching the ponies first. 

“ Eugenia’s last ! She is the pop-eyed monkey ! ” 
cried Joyce, cheerfully, looking back with a laugh as 
she began to untie Calico. Eugenia switched her 
skirts disdainfully through the hall, and mounted in 
dignified disgust. 

“ You’re elegant, I must say!” she exclaimed, 
scornfully. “ I wouldn’t play such a kid game ! ” 
Nevertheless, she dashed down the avenue at the top 
of her speed, when Joyce called out, tantalisingly, 
“The last one through the gate is a jibbering orni- 
thorhynchus ! ” In her zeal not to be dubbed such 
a title for the rest of the day as a jibbering orni- 
thorhynchus, Betty urged Lad along until she nearly 
bounced out of her saddle, and the letter lay on the 
hall table, forgotten by both the girls who had 
promised to post it. 

It was a devious way to the ruins of the old stone 
mill, — down unfrequented roads, through meadow 
gates, and over a narrow pasture lot, then up a 
little hill and into a cool beech woods, where the 
peace of the summer reigned unbroken. Piloted by 
Lloyd, they reached the place just as Mrs. Sher- 
man drove in from the opposite side of the woods. 

The vacant windows of the old mill seemed staring 


136 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

in surprise at the gay party gathering on the hill above 
it, although it should have been accustomed to all 
kinds of picnics by this time, considering the number 
of generations it had watched them come and go. No- 
body could tell how long it had been since the mill 
wheel turned its last round and the miller ground his 
last grist, but if the stones could babble secrets like 
the little spring, trickling down the rocky bank, they 
would have had many an interesting tale to tell of all 
that had happened in their hearing. 

There were many names and initials carved in 
the bark of the old beech-tr^es. Malcolm found his 
father’s and mother’s on one, as he wandered around 
with Eugenia, and set to work to cut his own under- 
neath. Eugenia seated herself on a rock near by, to 
watch him. Keith and Rob, and the other boys who 
had been invited to the picnic, busied themselves by 
dragging up sticks and logs for a big bonfire. The 
girls began a game of “ I spy ” behind the great rock 
where the columbines clambered in the spring, and 
spread their blossoms like butterflies poised on an 
airy stem. 

“ Come on, Eugenia,” they called, but she shrugged 
her shoulders with what the girls called a “young 
ladified air,” and turned to Malcolm with a coquettish 
glance of her big black eyes. 


HER SACRED PROMISE. 13 y 

“ I know whose initials you are going to cut with 
yours,” she said. 

“ Whose?” asked Malcolm, digging away at a 
capital M. 

“ Oh, I’ll not tell, but I know well enough. There’s 
only one that you could cut, you know.” 

“ You needn’t be so sure about that,” said Mal- 
colm, loftily. “ I know plenty of names that I wouldn’t 
mind cutting here in this tree with mine.” 

“With a heart around them, like the ones on this 
tree ? ” she asked, pointing to a rude carving on the 
trunk against which she leaned. 

“Yes, with a heart around them,” he repeated. 

“ But there’s only one name you would carve that 
way, and put an arrow through it,” she said, mean- 
ingly. “ At any rate, a silver arrow. Oh, maybe you 
think I haven’t seen her wear it, and blush when I 
teased her about it.” 

Malcolm went on cutting, without an answer. He 
had admired Eugenia more than any girl he had ever 
seen, but somehow this speech jarred on him. It did 
not seem exactly ladylike for her to insist on twitting 
him in such a personal way about his friendship for 
the Little Colonel. She would never have done such 
a thing, he felt quite sure. For a moment he half 
wished that it was Lloyd sitting on the rock beside 


138 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

him, but Eugenia could be very entertaining when 
she chose, and she was trying her best now to make 
an agreeable impression on this handsome boy who 
seemed so fond of Lloyd. She wanted to be first 
in his attentions, and, as usual, she had her way. 

“ I told you so ! ” she cried, presently, as a large 
capital L appeared under Malcolm’s initials. “ I knew 
you just couldn’t help making an L, and the next one 
will be an S.” 

“ I’m not done yet,” he said, with a smiling side- 
glance at her, and added two more lines, changing 
the L to an E. An expression of pleasure flashed 
across her face, as he outlined an F next to it. It 
would be something to tell Mollie and Fay and Kell 
next time she wrote, that the handsomest boy in 
Kentucky (as she enthusiastically described him to 
them), with the manners of a Sir Philip Sidney, had 
left the record of his attachment for her where all 
might read. 

She gave him another smile from under her long 
black eyelashes, and then looked down with a blush. 
He added the heart to the inscription then, and 
pierced it with an arrow. 

While these two played at a game that older 
children had played before them for many a genera- 
tion (as the scarred old tree-trunks bore silent witness 


HER SACRED PROMISE. 1 39 

on every hand), the game of “ I spy ” went on uproari- 
ously behind the columbine rock. The bonfire blazed 
higher and higher. It lighted the cool depths of the 
darkening woods, and sent dancing shadows across 
the deep ravines, and presently the picnic feast was 
spread near by and part of the supper was cooked 
over its coals. 

It was by its weird light that the charades were 
played, when the feast had been cleared away. Miss 
Allison arranged them. The actors were all little 
negroes, the funniest, blackest little pickaninnies that 
ever sung a song or danced a double shuffle. 

“ It’s Sylvia Gibbs's family,” explained Miss Alli- 
son, to the girls. “ Our circle of King’s Daughters 
had them under its wing all winter, or they would have 
starved. When I discovered what heathen they were, 
I turned missionary and taught them an hour every 
Sunday afternoon. They will do anything for me 
now, and are such clever little mimics that I know 
they can act the charades charmingly. Besides, they 
will give us a cake-walk afterward, and sing for us 
like nightingales.” 

While Miss Allison marshalled her flock of little 
darkies behind the great rock, Mrs. Sherman called 
the children to seat themselves in a semicircle on 
the camp-stools and rugs in front. “This is to be a 


140 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

guessing contest,” she explained, as she passed 
a card and pencil to each guest. “ There must 
be no talking, and no comparing notes. As each 
syllable is acted, write down the word you think 
is meant. The one who guesses the most charades 
wins the prize. Stir the bonfire, Alec. Now, all 
ready ! ” 

Miss Allison came out in front of her audience. 
“This word is the name of a favourite book,” she 
announced. “ It consists of two words. The first 
word is in three syllables, the second in two. They 
will be given in five separate acts.” 

Every eye watched intently, as three little col- 
oured boys came out from behind the rock and 
went through the scene of a highway robbery. Little 
Jim Gibbs, his white teeth and gleaming eyeballs 
making his face seem as black as night by contrast, 
strode out with a high silk hat, a baggy umbrella, and 
an old carpet-bag. He was evidently intended to rep- 
resent a lonely traveller, for, as he sauntered along in 
front of the audience, two other boys of the Gibbs 
family sprang out of the bushes in the background, 
with white cloth masks over their faces. One carried 
a dark lantern and the other a toy pistol, which he 
held at Jim’s head. They proceeded to go through 
the traveller’s pockets, stealing watch, purse, carpet- 


HER SACRED PROMISE. 


bag, and umbrella. After that they took to th 
heels, leaving the poor despoiled traveller looking 
mournfully af his empty pockets, which were turned 
wrong side out. 

“ Steal ” wrote Eugenia on her card, although she 
could think of no book beginning with that name. 
“ Thieves ” wrote Rob, and any one looking over the 
shoulders of the group would have seen several cards 
which bore the same word, but more which their 
puzzled owners had left blank. Betty tapped her 
teeth a moment with a pencil and then triumphantly 
wrote “rob.” 

The next act showed a hastily constructed house 
made of a clothes-horse and heavy roofing paper. 
Doors and windows had been roughly outlined in 
charcoal. In front, a swinging sign-board announced 
it as the “Traveller’s Rest” and offered refreshment 
within for man and beast. 

“Inn” wrote Betty, quickly guessing the second 
syllable. She was sure of the whole word, now, but 
the majority of the children sat with their pencils in 
their mouths, unable to think of any word that would 
fit in place beside the one already written. 

“Oh, this is easy,” said Betty to herself, writing 
the name “Robinson Crusoe” after the last act, as the 
crew of little pickaninnies, seated in an old skiff which 


HE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 


i been dragged up from the mill stream for that 
purpose, took up a piece of patch-work and began to 
sew. Betty was the only one who had guessed it. 

The next charade was easier. Every one wrote 
“music” on his card, after the two acts in which plain- 
tive mews floated up from the rocks and the Gibbs 
family were taken sick. All but Jim, who, in the high 
silk hat he had worn before, took the part of doctor. 

“If they are all as easy as this,” thought Betty, 
“ I can surely take one of the prizes,” and she waited 
eagerly for the next word. In the first act ’Tildy 
Gibbs came out with an envelope in her hands, and 
all of a sudden Betty’s heart gave a guilty thump as 
she thought of the letter she and Eugenia had left 
lying on the hall table. They had forgotten their 
promise. 

“ But it is Eugenia’s fault every bit as much as it 
is mine,” she thought, looking across the semicircle, 
where Eugenia sat serenely unconscious of forgotten 
promises. “ She’s just as much to blame as I am. 
Oh, well, I’ll mail it first thing in the morning.” 

But her conscience kept troubling her. “Your 
godmother asked if she could trust you, and she said 
it was important. You know you promised. There’s 
time yet to slip away and post that letter before the 
mail train goes by.” 


HER SACRED PROMISE. 


143 


But Betty would not listen to her conscience. She 
resolutely turned her attention to the charades, until 
all at once she seemed to hear Miss Allison’s voice 
saying, “ I like this little hand. It will keep a prom- 
ise to the utmost.” Then Keith’s conversation of the 
night before came back to her about his motto and 
his badge. But more than all, the thought of being 
worthy of her godmother’s trust in her impelled her 
to keep her promise. 

It was a hard struggle that went on in the little 
girl’s mind just then. From the puzzled glances 
around her she was sure that she was the only one 
who had guessed' all the charades correctly ; there- 
fore she stood the best chance of winning the first 
prize, and she wanted it — oh, how she wanted it ! 
— for Mrs. Sherman had said that it was a book. 
And yet — her sacred promise ! If she kept it, 
she would lose her only chance. It was twilight in 
the woods, and it would be dark before she could get 
back to the picnic-grounds. It wouldn’t be right to 
ask any one else to go with her, and miss the chance 
of winning the prize, too. Still, there was that prom- 
ise, and it must be kept — to the utmost. All these 
thoughts went on, swaying her first to one decision 
and then another. 

She half rose from the rug where she was sitting, 


144 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

then dropped down again. It seemed hardly fair that 
Eugenia should not share the responsibility, yet she 
knew her too well to ask her to go back to the house 
with her. Several times she started up and then 
sank back before she could make up her mind. Finally 
she walked over to a fence corner on the other side 
of the bonfire, where the water-bucket stood. The 
ponies were hitched below in the ravine. So in- 
tently was the group above watching the charades, 
that no one saw her when she scrambled down the 
steep path leading into the ravine, and began untying 
Lad. Climbing into the saddle, she gave one regret- 
ful look at the party she was leaving behind her, and 
resolutely turned his head toward home. 

It was lighter out in the open, when they had left 
the shelter of the woods, and she guided the pony 
down the hill, across the pasture, and through the 
gate, glad that she did not have to go all the way in 
darkness. Lad, knowing that he was going home, 
dashed down the road, choosing his own direction 
when the lonely highway branched. He knew the 
way better than his little rider. 

She looked around her, thinking how long the way 
seemed when she had to travel it all by herself. She 
was riding faster than she had ever ridden before, and 
yet it seemed hours since she had left the mill when 


HER SACRED PROMISE. 1 45 

she at last reached the great gate with the avenue of 
locusts stretching beyond it. 

Springing off the pony when it stopped at the 
steps, she rushed into the hall, snatched the letter 
from the table, and ran out again, only pausing for a 
hasty glance at the clock. Mom Beck, who had heard 
the clatter of hoofs, the quick step on the porch, and 
the wild dash out again, feared that something was 
amiss, and came running to the door. 

“ What undah the sun is the mattah, honey ? ” she 
called, but Betty was far down the avenue, and never 
paused to look back. 

Lad, turned away from home, was not so willing to 
run now, and Betty could hear the train whistling up 
the road. It was the seven o’clock mail train. 

“ Oh, Lad, hurry ! ” she urged. “ Dear, good old 
Lad, please hurry ! I’m so afraid we won’t get there 
in time.” 

Lad looked around at her and stopped still in the 
road. The train whistled nearer. Guiding the pony 
to the fence, Betty stood up and broke a switch from 
an overhanging tree. 

“ I hate to do it, you poor old fellow,” she said, 
“but I must. You must get to the post-office in 
time.” Urged along by the switch and her tearful 
pleadings, Lad broke into a run and brought up at 


146 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

the post-office, just as the postmistress was locking 
the mail-bag. “ Oh, Miss Mattie ! ” sounded an 
anxious little voice at the delivery window, “ is it too 
late to send this letter ? Mrs. Sherman said it must 
go, if possible, on this train.” 

“It’s a close shave, my dear,” said Miss Mattie, 
reaching out to take the letter eagerly thrust through 
the bars. “I’m a few minutes late, anyhow, and 
there’s barely time to stamp it and slip it in, so ! ” 
She acted while she spoke, so that with the last word 
she had turned the key. A coloured porter, who stood 
waiting, caught up the bag and hurried across the 
road to the railroad station. The train came thunder- 
ing down the track, and he jumped across in front of 
the locomotive. 

Betty watched until she saw the mail-bag tossed 
aboard, and then gave a deep sigh of thankfulness. 
“Well,” she exclaimed to Lad, in a relieved tone, 
“that’s done! We’re too late for the charades, but 
maybe we’ll get back to the mill in time for the cake- 
walk.” 

It would have been quite dark by the time she 
reached the cross-roads again, if it had not been that 
the moon was beginning to rise, and cast a faint 
whiteness over the dusky fields. She could not 
remember which way to turn. The first time she 


HER SACRED PROMISE. 


14 7 


passed that way she had paid no attention to direc- 
tion, but had followed heedlessly after Lloyd. The 
second time the pony had shot by so fast that she 
had had no time to consider. Now he stood still, not 
caring which way she chose so long as he had to 
travel away from his stall and feed-bin. 

“It must be to the left,” she said, in bewilder- 
ment, after a moment’s hesitation, and slowly turned 
in that direction. But she had taken the wrong way. 
She went on and on, wondering why she did not come 
to a gate, when the road suddenly turned into a nar- 
row wagon track, with dark corn-fields on each side. 
There was not a house or a human being in sight. 

The moon was not high enough yet to dispel much 
of the gloom of the twilight, and bullbats were 
circling overhead, dipping so low at times that once 
they almost brushed her face. 

“ Oh, I’m lost ! ” she whispered, with trembling 
lips. All of a sudden there was a rustling of the 
high corn, and out of it limped a big burly negro. 
He had a gun on his shoulder, and a savage-eyed 
dog skulked at his heels. Betty nearly screamed in 
her terror at this sudden appearance. She knew at 
a glance that the fellow must be “Limping Tige,” 
one of the worst characters in the county. He had 
just served a third term in the penitentiary, and she 


148 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

had heard Mom Beck say that nobody in the Valley 
would draw an easy breath while Limping Tige was 
loose. 

A cold fear seized the child, and such a weakness 
numbed her trembling hands that she could scarcely 
hold the bridle. 

Wheeling the pony so suddenly that she almost 
lost her balance, she gave him a cut with the switch 
that sent him flying back over the road he had come, 
at the top of his speed. Now every bush and every 
tree and every brier-tangled fence corner seemed to 
hold some nameless terror for her, and even her lips 
were cold and blue with fear. 

At the cross-roads she had another fright, as some- 
thing big and black loomed up in the moonlight 
ahead of her. “ Oh, what is it ? ” she moaned, so 
frightened that her heart almost stopped beating. 
The next glance showed her that it was some one 
coming toward her on horseback, and then a cheery 
whistling, reassured her. Nobody could be very 
dangerous, she knew, who could go along the road 
whistling “ My Old Kentucky Home ” in such a 
happy fashion. 

It was Keith, who had come to hunt for her. 
They had missed her, when the charades were over, 
and, finding her pony gone too, thought that she 


HER SACRED PROMISE. 


149 


must have been taken suddenly ill, and had slipped 
away quietly in order not to disturb the pleasure of 
the others. 

Keith had offered to ride up to Locust and see 
what was the matter, and his surprise showed itself 
in his rapid questioning when he met her riding 
wildly away from the place where she had seen 
Limping Tige. It did not take long for him to 
learn the whole story of her lonely ride, and the 
fright she had had, for his questions were fired with 
such directness of aim that truthful Betty could not 
dodge them. “ And you missed it all — the charades 
and the chance of taking the prize — and came all the 
way back by yourself just to post a letter, when you 
didn’t know the way ! ” he exclaimed again as they 
drew in sight of the old mill. 

“Well, I call that pretty plucky for a girl.” 

“I didn’t want to,” confessed Betty, “but there 
wasn’t anything else to do. It was a sacred promise, 
you know, and I had to keep it — to the utmost.” 

They jogged along in silence side by side, a 
moment longer. Then as the bonfire at the old mill 
flared into sight, Keith looked down at the tired 
little figure on the pony beside him. 

“Betty,” he said, with a gleam of admiration in 
his eyes, “you’re a brick!” 


CHAPTER X. 


“FOUND OUT.” 

“What makes everybody so snarly this morn- 
ing?” asked Joyce, looking around on the circle of 
moody faces. The four girls had been lounging in 
hammocks and chairs under the trees for several 
hours, and in all that time scarcely a civil word had 
been spoken. 

“ There isn’t any reason why we should be cross,” 
Joyce went on. “It’s a glorious day, we’ve had a 
delicious breakfast and a good ride, and there is the 
tissue-paper party at Sally Fairfax’s to-night to look 
forward to. But in spite of it all I feel so mean and 
cross that I want to scratch somebody.” 

Betty looked up from her book and laughed. “ I 
don’t feel snarly, but I’ve been wondering ever since 
breakfast what had happened to make you all out of 
sorts. Lloyd looks as if she had been eating sour 
pickles, and Eugenia has snapped at everybody who 
has spoken to her this morning.” 

“ That’s a story ! ” exclaimed Eugenia, tartly, with 
* 5 ° 


FOUND out: 


151 

such a frown that Lloyd began singing in a tantalis- 
ing tone, M Crosspatch, draw the latch, sit by the 
fire and spin.” 

“ Oh, hush up ! ” exclaimed Eugenia, crossly. 

“Why, Lloyd,” said Mrs. Sherman, coming up 
just then in time to hear Lloyd’s song and Eu- 
genia’s answer, “you are surely not teasing one of 
your guests ! I am surprised ! ” 

To every one’s astonishment, Lloyd flopped over in 
the hammock, and, covering her face with her arm, 
began to cry. 

“ What is the matter, little daughter ? ” asked Mrs. 
Sherman, in alarm, sitting down in the hammock be- 
side her and stroking the short soft hair soothingly. 
She had never known Lloyd to be so sensitive to a 
slight reproof. 

“ Mother didn’t mean to scold her little girl. I 
was only surprised to hear you saying anything 
unpleasant to a guest of yours.” 

“You-you’d have said it, too!” sobbed the Little 
Colonel, “if Eu-Eugenia had been so mean to you 
all mawnin’ ! She’s been t-talkin so hateful and 
cross — ” 

“I have not!" cried Eugenia. “You began it, 
and you have tried to pick a quarrel ever since we 
came out here, and Joyce has kept nagging at me, 


152 THE LITTLE COLONEL’S HOUSE PARTY. 

too. You’ve both made me feel so miserable and 
unhappy that I wish I’d never set eyes on you 
and your horrid old Kentucky ! ” 

Here, to Mrs. Sherman’s still greater surprise, 
Eugenia fumbled for her handkerchief and began 
mopping up the tears that were streaming down her 
face. 

“ Really, girls, I am distressed ! ” exclaimed Mrs. 
Sherman. “ Is there anything serious the matter 
that you have been quarrelling about, or are you only 
ill and nervous ? ” 

“ I ' nevah was so mizzible in all my life,” said 
Lloyd. “ My throat is soah and my eyes ache, and I 
can’t help cryin’ if anybody looks at me.” 

“ That’s just the way I feel,” said Eugenia, still 
dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief, “and my 
head aches, besides.” 

“ I think we are all three taking bad colds,” said 
Joyce, from her hammock. “ I haven’t reached the 
crying stage yet, but I’m fast on the way toward it. 
Betty will be the only one able to go to the party 
to-night, and our tissue-paper dresses are so pretty.” 

Mrs. Sherman looked from one flushed face to 
another with a puzzled expression. “ I don’t know 
what to think,” she said, “ but if I were not sure that 
you have been no place where you possibly could 


FOUND out: 


153 


have been exposed, I should be afraid that you are 
all taking the measles. Doctor Fuller told me the 
other day that there are several children in the gypsy 
camp down with it, and one poor little baby had died. 
It didn’t have proper attention. Why, what is the 
matter, girls ? ” Mrs. Sherman paused, having seen 
a startled glance pass from Lloyd to Eugenia . 

“ Surely you haven’t been near any of those peo- 
ple, have you ? Passed them on the road, or met 
them at the station at any time ? ” 

There was a long pause in which nobody answered, 
and in which Betty could hear her heart beat fast. 

“ Lloyd, answer me,” insisted Mrs. Sherman. 

“ Eu-Eugenia won’t 1-let me!” sobbed the Lit- 
tle Colonel. “She made us all p-promise not to 
tell.” 

Eugenia’s face turned pale, but she lifted her head 
defiantly as Mrs. Sherman turned to her, calling her 
name. 

“ What is the trouble, child ? You surely didn’t 
go to the camp that morning when I warned you 
not to ? ” 

“ Yes, we did,” answered Eugenia, a little fright- 
ened now by the expression of Mrs. Sherman’s face, 
but still defiant. 

“ When was it ? ” 


1 54 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

“ About a week ago, I think. I don’t remember 
exactly.” 

“ It’s been nine days,” said Betty, counting her 
fingers. “ I remember it because it was the day 
before the picnic at the old mill.” 

“ And there was a sick baby in the tent when we 
went in to have our fortunes told,” added Joyce. 
“ It lay in the old woman’s lap all the time she held 
my hand, and it kept turning its head from side to 
side, and fretting in a weak little voice as if it didn’t 
have strength to cry hard. That must have been 
the poor little thing that died.” 

“ And you all went into that tent and all let that 
old woman hold your hands ? ” asked Mrs. Sher- 
man, looking around from one to another with a 
distressed face. 

“No, mothah,” cried the Little Colonel, “Betty 
didn’t go, and she tried to keep us from goin’. She 
said you wouldn’t like it.” 

A loving smile of unspoken approval, that made 
Betty’s heart glow with pleasure, lighted Mrs. Sher- 
man’s face for an instant. Then she turned to the 
others. 

“Well, I’ll send for Doctor Fuller immediately. If 
it proves to be the measles, we will turn the house 
into a hospital at once. If the old saying is true 


“ FOUND OUT” 155 

that misery loves company, then you ought to be a 
contented quartette.” 

“Oh, I’ve already had the measles,” said Betty, 
quickly, “two years ago.” 

“ Then I’m glad that you will not have to suffer 
for the disobedience of the others,” answered her 
godmother. “ It has brought its own punishment 
this time, so I’ll not add a scolding. I’ll leave the 
measles, if that’s what it turns out to be, to preach 
you a sermon on the text, ‘ Be sure your sin will find 
you out.’ ” 

Sally Fairfax welcomed no guests from Locust 
that night at her party, for the doctor made his visit 
and pronounced his verdict. No parties for many a 
long day. Lloyd and Eugenia and Joyce had the 
measles, and nobody would want Betty to come for 
fear of the contagion. 

Mrs. Sherman and Eliot and Mom Beck went from 
one darkened room to another with hot lemonade, 
and Betty was left to roam about the place by her- 
self. Once she slipped into the sewing-room where 
the tissue-paper costumes were laid out in readiness 
beside the dainty little flower-shaped hats. Joyce’s 
was patterned after a pale blue morning-glory, and 
Eugenia’s a scarlet poppy. Lloyd’s looked like a 
pink hyacinth, and Betty’s a daffodil. 


156 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

“ It’s too bad,” mourned Betty, tilting the graceful 
daffodil blossom of a hat on her brown curls, and 
admiring it in the mirror. “/ haven’t got the 
measles, and this is so sweet, it’s a pity not to wear 
it somewhere.” 

Late that evening she heard the Little Colonel 
grumbling : “ Well, this is a house pahty suah enough, 
I must say ! Heah we are in the house, and heah 
we’ll stay and miss all the fun. I don’t like this kind 
of a house pahty ! ” 

“Nevah mine, honey,” said Mom Beck. “ It’ll 
not be as bad as you think. The measles is done 
broke out on you beautiful — as thick as hops.” 

“ But I hate this dahk room,” wailed the Little 
Colonel, “and it’s so poky and tiahsome, and I am 
so hot and I ache all ovah — ” 

Then Betty heard Mrs. Sherman go into the room, 
and the fretting ceased as her cool hand stroked the 
hot little forehead, and her voice began a slumber 
song. It was the “White Seal’s Lullaby.” 

“ * Oh, hush thee my baby, the night is behind us, 

And black are the waters that sparkled so green.’ ” 

How often she had read it in her “Jungle Book,” 
but she had no idea how beautiful it was until she 
heard it as her godmother was singing it. There was 


FOUND out: 


157 


the slow, restful, swinging motion of the waves in that 
music ; the coolness of the deep green seas. How 
quickly it took away the fever and the aching, and 
left the healing of sleep in its wake! 

“ 4 Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow. 

Oh, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease ! 

The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee, 
Asleep in the arms of the slow swinging seas.’ 

Betty, in her room across the hall, leaned her head 
against the window-sill and looked out into the dark- 
ness. There were tears in her eyes. 44 Oh,” she 
whispered, with a quivering lip, 44 if I only had a 
mother to sing to me like that, I wouldn’t mind hav- 
ing the measles or anything else ! ” 

The worst was over in a few days, and then two 
cots were carried into Eugenia’s room for Lloyd and 
Joyce to occupy during the day. The windows still 
had to be kept darkened, but the girls managed to 
find a great deal to amuse themselves with. They 
would not have fared so well had it not been for 
Betty. Many an hour she spent in the dim room, 
when the summer was calling to her on every breeze 
to come out in its sunshine and be glad in its cheer. 
Many a game of checkers she played with the exact- 
ing invalids, when she longed to be riding over the 


158 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

country on Lad. And she read aloud by the single 
ray of light admitted through the shutters, and told 
stories until her voice was husky. 

“ It’s fun, isn’t it ? ” said Eugenia, one day when 
they were waiting for their lunch to be brought 
up. “ I am always wondering what is coming next, 
for Cousin Elizabeth has never missed a day, sending 
up some surprise with our meals. It is a continual 
surprise-party.” 

“We’ll be dreadfully spoiled,” said Joyce, “like 
a little boy at home that I know. He insists on 
keeping Christmas the year around. As he is the 
only child, and they’d give him the moon if they could 
reach it, they let him hang up his stocking every 
night, and every morning there is a present in it 
for him.” 

“Cousin Elizabeth is spoiling us just the same 
way,” said Eugenia. “Those little souvenir spoons 
she sent up with the chocolate yesterday are perfect 
darlings. I think the world of mine.” 

“ I wonder what the surprise will be to-day,” said 
Lloyd, as the jingling of silver and tinkling of ice 
in glasses sounded on the stairs. 

“I know,” said Betty, running to open the door 
for the procession of tray bearers. “ It is conundrum 
salad. I helped godmother make it.” 


FOUND out: 


159 


Eliot, Mom Beck, and the housemaid entered in 
solemn file, each bearing a tray containing a simple 
lunch, in the centre of which was a fancy plate 
containing a pile of crisp green lettuce. 

“ Isn’t that a dainty dish to set before the king ! ” 
exclaimed Joyce, examining her conundrum salad. 
“ Oh, girls, how that did fool me. I could have sworn 
that those were real lettuce leaves, and they are only 
paper. But what a clever imitation, and what a lot 
of conundrums written inside ! ” 

“ See if you can guess this one ? ” cried Eugenia. 
“ Isn’t it funny ? ” and she read a clever one that 
set them all to thinking. There was much laughter 
when they finally had to give it up, and she told 
them the answer. 

“ Now listen to this,” said Lloyd next, and then 
it was Joyce’s turn, and the lunch was eaten in 
the midst of much laughing and many bright remarks 
that the salad called forth. 

“You wouldn’t think that having measles was 
so funny,” said Betty, when the trays had been 
carried out, “ if you had had it the way I did. It was 
in the middle of harvest, so nobody had time to 
take care of me. Cousin Hetty had so much to do 
that she couldn’t come up-stairs many times a day 
to wait on me. She’d just look in the door and 


l60 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

ask if I wanted anything, and hurry away again. 
My little room in the west gable was so hot. The 
sun beat against it all afternoon, and the water 
in the pitcher wouldn’t stay cool. Sometimes I’d 
cry till my throat ached, wishing that I had a mother 
to sit beside me, and put her cool hands against my 
face, and rub my back when it ached, and sing me to 
sleep. And after I got better, and my appetite 
began to come back, I’d lie and watch the door 
for hours, it seemed to me, waiting for Cousin Hetty 
to come up with my meals. I’d think of all sorts 
of dainty things that I had read about, until my 
mouth watered. Then when she came, maybe there 
would be nothing but a cup of tea slopped all over 
the saucer, and a piece of burnt toast. Or maybe 
it would be a bowl of soup half cold, or too salty. 
Poor Cousin Hetty was so busy she couldn’t bother 
to fix things for me. I couldn’t help crying when 
she’d gone down-stairs. I’d be so disappointed. 

“But the worst thing of all was what Davy did 
one day. He wanted to be kind and nice, and 
do something for me, so he went off to the pond, 
and sat there on the hot sunny bank all morning, 
trying to catch me a fish. To everybody’s surprise 
he did catch one about eleven o’clock, — a slimy-look- 
ing little catfish, — and came running straight up to 


FOUND out: 


161 

my room with it in his dirty little hands. He smelled 
so fishy I could scarcely stand it, for it was the day 
I felt the very worst. But he didn’t know that. He 
climbed up on the bed with it, and held it almost 
under my nose for me to see. He was so happy that 
his dirty little face was all one big smile. He kept 
saying, as he dangled it around, ‘Ain’t he pretty, 
Betty? I ketched him. I ketched him for you, 
’cause you’re sick.’ 

“ Ugh ! I can smell that fish yet ! I smelled it 
all afternoon, for he took it down-stairs to have it 
cleaned and cooked. About one o’clock he came 
back up-stairs after I had had my lunch, and there 
he had it on a plate, fried up into a crisp. I 
couldn’t have swallowed any of it, to save me, but 
I couldn’t disappoint the little fellow when he had 
tried so hard to please me, so I had to ask him to 
leave it, and told him maybe I would feel more 
like eating after I had slept awhile. So he went 
out perfectly satisfied, and I lay there, growing 
sicker every minute from the smell of that fried 
fish. At last I gathered up strength enough to 
throw it out of the window to the cat, but the 
plate still smelled of it, and nobody came in to take 
it away until after dark. 

“ Cousin Hetty was dreadfully worried when she 


1 62 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

found that Davy had been in my room, but he didn’t 
take the measles, and that was the only time I saw 
him while I was sick. I was alone all the time. 
You can’t imagine how doleful it was to stay in that 
hot dark room all day by myself.” 

‘‘You poor little Bettykins!” sighed Joyce, sym- 
pathetically. “ It’s too bad you can’t have the 
measles all over again with us, here at the house 
party. It really isn’t a bit bad now. I am enjoying 
it immensely.” 

As she spoke there was the sound of a horse’s 
hoofs in the avenue, and a moment later a shrill 
whistle sounded under the window. 

“ Hello, Measles,” shouted a merry voice. 

“ It’s Rob ! ” exclaimed Lloyd. “ Hello yourself ! ” 
she called back, laughingly. “Come in and have 
some, won’t you ? ” 

“No, thank you,” he answered. “You are too 
generous. But I say, Lloyd, let down a basket or 
something, won’t you ? I’ve got a surprise here for 
you all.” 

“Take the scrap-basket, Betty,” said Lloyd, ex- 
citedly pointing to a fancy little basket made of 
braided sweet grass, and tied with many bows. “ My 
skipping-rope is in the closet. You can let it down 
by that if you tie it to the handles.” 


FOUND out: 


163 

A moment later Betty’s smiling face appeared at 
the window, and the basket was lowered to the boy 
on the horse below. 

“ I can’t reach it without standing up on the 
saddle,” called Rob. “ Whoa, there, Ben ! Easy, 
old boy ! ”, With feet wide apart to balance himself, 
Rob carefully dropped something from the basket he 
carried on his arm to the one that Betty dangled on 
a level with his eyes. 

“One for you, too, Betty,” the girls heard him 
say, but he had cantered off down the avenue before 
they discovered what it was he had left for them. 

Betty carefully drew the basket in, fearful lest 
the rope might slip, for “ the surprise ” was heavy. 
As she landed it safely and turned the basket over 
on the floor, out rolled four fat little fox-terrier 
puppies. 

“ What darlings ! ” cried Lloyd, springing off her 
cot to catch up one of the plump little things as it 
sprawled toward her on its awkward paws. “ They 
are so much alike we’ll never be able to tell them 
apart unless we tie different coloured ribbons on them. 
I’m going to name mine Bob after Robby, ’cause he 
gave them to us.” 

“Let’s name them all that,” said Betty. “We’ll 
be taking them away to different places soon, so it 


164 the LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

will not make any difference.” The suggestion was 
received with applause, and Eugenia sent Eliot to her 
trunk for a piece of pale green ribbon. “ I’m going 
to have my Bob’s necktie match my room,” she said. 

“ We’ll all do that, too,” said Joyce, and in a few 
minutes the four Bobs were frisking clumsily over 
the floor, in their respective bows of pink, yellow, 
blue, and green. They afforded the girls entertain- 
ment all that afternoon, and in the evening there was 
another surprise. 

In the starlight, when it was dark enough for the 
blinds and shutters to be all thrown open in their 
rooms, they heard a carriage coming down the 
avenue. It, too, stopped under the window, and in 
a moment they recognised the twang of Malcolm’s 
banjo and Miss Allison’s guitar. “ It’s a serenade,” 
called Eugenia. “ What a good alto voice Keith 
has ! ” 

It was an old college tune that rose on the air. 
Miss Allison had parodied the words of the peanut 
song : 

Any fellow that has any mea-sles 
And give tli his neighbour none, 

He sha’n’t have any of my measles 
When his measles are gone. 

Oh, that will be joyful, joyful, 

Oh, that will be joyful, when his mea-sles 
are gone. 


“FOUND out: 


165 


Then they sang, “My love is like the red, red 
rose” and “Pop goes the weasel, the queen’s got 
the measles.” They were all silly little ditties, but 
the personal allusions made them interesting to the 
girls, and there was a storm of applause from the 
upper windows after each one. Mrs. Sherman 
brought out cake and lemonade to the serenaders, 
and the girls hung out of the windows as far as 
they dared, to see what was going on below. 

“ If we only hadn’t gone to that horrid old gypsy 
camp,” lamented the Little Colonel, “ we might be 
down there now, having a share of the good time. 
What are you all laughing at ? ” she called. “ It is 
simply maddening to be up here and listen to you 
and not know.” 

^Malcolm leaned out of the carriage to sing, teas- 
ingly, “ Thou art so near and yet so far,” adding, 
“Never mind, Lloyd, we’ll come again to-morrow, 
and bring a travelling show with us. Look out for 
us early in the morning, before it begins to get hot.” 

“What do you suppose those boys are going to 
do?” asked Eugenia, as Lloyd drew in her head, 
and the carriage rolled off, the serenaders still 
singing. 

“I haven’t the faintest idea. There’s nothing to 
do but wait and see.” 


1 66 THE LITTLE CO LONE VS HOUSE PARTY. 

Although the question was asked several times that 
evening before bedtime, and the girls amused them- 
selves for a quarter of an hour guessing what kind 
of a travelling show was to be brought by for their 
entertainment, not one of them thought of it again 
next morning. The doctor had decided that their 
eyes were well enough to bear the light, and, at his 
visit, threw open several of the blinds. Mrs. Sher- 
man drove down to the station, and Mom Beck went 
to the servants’ cottage. Only Eliot was left to keep 
an eye on the invalids, and she had been invited to 
bring her sewing and listen to a story that Betty was 
reading aloud. They had grown very fond of patient 
old Eliot, for she had been the kindest and best of 
nurses in their illness. The girls were all lounging 
around the room in wrappers, each with her own par- 
ticular Bob in her lap. 

The reading had gone on for about half an hour, 
when Eliot’s sewing suddenly slid from her lap to the 
floor, and a queer rattle in her throat made every one 
look up in alarm. At first they thought that she must 
be having some kind of a fit. Her hands were thrown 
up, her mouth dropped open, there was a look of wild 
terror in her staring eyes, and her face was deathly 
pale. It was terrifying to see a grown woman seem 
so frightened. She was pointing to the door, and, 





“THERE WAS ONE WILD SCREAM AFTER ANOTHER 




































“ FOUND OUT." 1 67 

as their eyes followed her shaking finger, they forgot 
her fear in their own fright. 

There, standing on its hind legs in the door, was 
an enormous bear, taller than any man they had ever 
seen. Its mouth was open, and a long red tongue 
hung out between its gleaming teeth. Trailing be- 
hind him was a heavy rope, that showed that he had 
broken away from some place of confinement. 

There was one wild scream after another, as the 
girls sprang up, spilling the four Bobs out of their 
laps to the floor. Eugenia rolled under the bed in 
such mad haste that she bumped her head against 
the footboard, crying in an imploring tone as she 
disappeared, “ Oh, don’t eat me ! Don’t eat me ! ” 
Joyce scrambled up on a high chest of drawers, and 
from there to the top of the wardrobe, where she sat 
panting and looking down at the bear, who seemed 
surprised at his reception. After one frightened 
scream, Betty buried her head in a sofa pillow like 
a little ostrich, and made no attempt to escape. She 
seemed glued to her chair. 

The Little Colonel, who had stumbled over all of 
the four Bobbies in her confusion, and fallen on top 
of them as she tried to scramble up from her knees, 
gave one more startled look at the intruder, and then 
sprang up with an angry cry. “ It’s that old tramp 


1 68 THE LITTLE CO LONE VS HOUSE PARTY. 

beah that belongs to Malcolm and Keith/' she ex- 
claimed, in a great passion. The girls had never seen 
her in such a fury. 

“ Get out of heah, mistah ! ” she shrieked, stamp- 
ing her foot and spowling darkly. “This is the 
second time you have neahly frightened me to 
death ! Get out of heah, I say, or I’ll break every 
bone in yo’ body ! ” She had been so startled by 
Eliot’s appearance and then the general outcry, that 
her nervousness passed into a rage. Picking up the 
book that Betty had been reading, she hurled it at 
the astonished bear with all her force. Eliot’s work- 
basket followed next, and the pillows from the bed 
and sofa. Next she tore off her slippers, and sent 
them flying against the brown furry back now turned 
toward her. Not knowing what to make of such a 
shower of spools and needles, scissors, buttons, and 
wearing apparel, old Bruin dropped on all fours and 
ambled out of the doorway just as Lloyd caught up 
the water pitcher. 

A panting little coloured boy met him on the stairs 
and caught up the rope trailing behind him. “He 
won’t hurt you, Miss Lloyd,” he called, assuringly. ! 
“He b’long to Mistah Keith an’ Mistah Malcolm.' 
They done tole me to lead him up heah, and I 
stopped to shet the gate an’ he broke away from 


FOUND out: 


169 


me. They cornin’ ’long theyselves, toreckly. I 
b’lieve that’s them a-comin’ now. The beah ain’t 
gwine to hurt you.” 

“ Oh, I am not afraid of the beah,” answered Lloyd, 
“ but I hate to be surprised. It came walkin’ in on 
us so easy that I didn’t have time to see that it was 
only an old tame beah. It stood up on its hind legs 
lookin’ twice as big as usual, and when everybody 
screamed and carried on so, I didn’t know what I 
was doin’. As soon as I realised that it was the 
boys’ pet I wasn’t afraid, but it made me mad to be 
startled that way. And that’s the second time it has 
happened.” 

“ Is he gone ? ” asked Eugenia, poking her head 
slowly out from under the bed like a cautious turtle. 

“Yes, Wash has him,” answered the Little Colo- 
nel, laughing hysterically now that her temper had 
spent itself. “You girls look too funny for any use. 
Come down off your perch on that wardrobe, Joyce. 
It was only an old pet that the boys bought from a 
tramp one time. They keep it up at * Fairchance,’ 
the home that Mr. MacIntyre founded for little waifs 
and strays. I s’pose that is what Malcolm meant by 
a travellin’ show. I might have thought of that, for 
they are always makin’ it show off its tricks.” 

Eliot had found her voice by this time, and was 


170 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

sitting limply back in her chair with her hand over 
her heart. “If that is their travelling show,” she 
said, weakly, “ I wish they’d choose another road. I 
was that scared I couldn’t have spoken a word if my 
life had depended on it ; and all the time I was 
trying my hardest to scream. I thought it was a 
wild beast that had walked in from the woods to 
devour us all.” 

“But, Eliot,” said the Little Colonel, still laugh- 
ing, “you know we don’t have wild beasts in these 
woods nowadays. There hasn’t been any for yeahs 
and yeahs.” 

But Eliot shook her head doubtfully, and when the 
boys came up with a banjo and French harp to put 
the bear through his performances, she watched the 
dancing at a respectful distance. She was not at all 
sure about her safety after that, as long as she was 
in sight of the Kentucky woods. She could not be 
convinced that all sorts of ravenous beasts were not 
lurking in their shadows, and would not have been 
surprised at any time to have met a live Indian in 
war-paint and feathers. 

Eugenia’s frenzied wail became a byword, and for 
many days one had only to say, “ Oh, don't eat me ! ” 
to start a peal of laughter. 


CHAPTER XI. 


SOME STORIES AND A POEM. 

“ What is the worst thing you evah did in yo’ life, 
Joyce ? ” asked the Little Colonel. It was the first 
day after their recovery from the measles that the 
girls had been allowed to go down-stairs, and they 
were trying to amuse themselves in the library. 
Time had dragged for the last half-hour, and 
Lloyd’s question was welcomed with interest. 

“Urn, I don’t know,” answered Joyce, half closing 
her eyes as she tried to remember. “ I’ve done so 
many bad things’ that I have been ashamed of after- 
ward, that I can hardly tell which is the worst. One 
of the meanest things I ever did was when I was too 
small to know how cruel it was. It was so long ago 
that I could not talk plainly, but I remember dis- 
tinctly what a stifling hot day it was. Mamma had 
been packing her furs away for the summer in moth- 
balls. You know how horridly those camphor things 
smell. I hung over her and asked questions every 
time she moved. She told me how the moth-millers 


172 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

lay eggs in the furs if they are not protected, and 
showed me an old muff that she had found in the 
attic, which was so badly moth-eaten that it had to 
be thrown away. I watched her lay the little balls 
all among the furs, and then tie them up in linen 
bags, and pack them away in a chest. 

“It happened that I had an old cat named Muff, and 
as soon as mamma had gone down-stairs, I took it 
into my head to pack her away in camphor balls. 
So I put her into an old pillow-case with a handful 
of suffocating moth-balls, and tied her up tight. She 
mewed and scratched at a terrible rate, but I tugged 
away at the heavy lid of the chest until I got it open, 
and then pop went poor old Muff in with the other 
furs. 

“ Luckily, mamma found an astrakhan cape, several 
hours later, that she had overlooked, and went back 
to the attic to put it into the chest, or the poor cat 
would have smothered. When she raised the lid 
there was that pillow-case squirming around as if 
it were alive. It frightened her so that she jumped 
back and dropped the lid, and then stood screaming 
for Bridget. I didn’t know what had startled her, 
and she did not know that I had any connection 
with it, for I stood looking on as innocent as a lamb, 
with my thumb in my mouth. 


SOME STORIES AND A POEM. 1 73 

“ When Bridget came and saw the pillow-case 
squirming and bumping around, she said, ‘ Shure, 
ma’am, an’ it’s bewitched them furs is, and I’d not be 
afther touching ’em wid a tin-fut pole. I’ll run call 
the gard’ner next dure.’ So she put her head out 
at the attic window and screamed for Dennis, and 
Dennis thought the house was on fire, and came 
running up the stairs two steps at a time. He untied 
the pillow-case and turned it upside down with a hard 
shake, and, of course, out bounced poor old Muff in a 
shower of moth-balls, nearly smothered from being 
shut up so long with that stifling odour. She was sick 
all day, and Bridget said that it was a lucky thing 
that cats have nine lives, or she couldn’t have gotten 
over it. 

“ I cried because they had let her out, and said 
I didn’t want the nasty moths to spoil my kitty’s 
fur, "’and" mamma laughed so hard that she sat right 
down on the attic floor. Then she took me in her 
lap and explained how Muff took care of her own 
fur, and did not need to be packed away in the 
summer-time.” 

“ That makes me think of a scrape that Lloyd and 
I got into,” said Eugenia, “when she lived in New 
York. We had seen a mattress sent away from the 
house to be renovated, and had asked the nurse all 


174 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

sorts of questions about it. We concluded it would 
be a fine thing to renovate the mattress of one of our 
doll-beds. So we ripped one end open and pulled 
out all the cotton and excelsior it was stuffed with, 
and burned it in the nursery grate. Then we began 
to look around the house for something to refill it 
with. 

“Down in the library was a beautiful fur rug. 
I don’t remember what kind of a wild beast it was 
made from ; I was so little, then, you know. But 
papa was very proud of it, for he had killed the 
animal himself out in the Rocky Mountains, and 
had had the skin made into a rug as a souvenir of 
that hunting trip. It had the head left on it, and 
we were a little afraid of that head. The glass eyes 
glared so savagely, and the teeth were so sharp in 
its open jaws ! But the fur was long and soft and 
thick, and we decided to shear off a little to stuff 
our mattress with. We thought it wouldn’t take 
much. So I took the nurse’s scissors, and we slipped 
down into the library with the empty mattress- 
tick. 

“ The beast’s eyes seemed to look at me in such 
a life-like way that I was afraid to touch it until 
Lloyd put a sofa pillow over its head and sat down 
on it. Then I began to shear off a little near the 


SOME STORIES AND A POEM \ 1 75 

tail, where I thought it wouldn’t show much ; but 
the mattress didn’t fill up very fast. So I kept 
on shearing, a little farther and a little farther, 
here a patch and there a patch, until I had taken 
a great streak out of the middle of the back, and the 
rug was ruined.” 

“ What did your father say ? ” asked Joyce. 

“ Oh, he was furious ! He said a seven-year-old 
child ought to know better than to do a thing like 
that, and if she didn’t she should be taught. But 
mamma wouldn’t let him touch me, and only scolded 
the nurse for not watching me more closely.” 

“Now it is Betty’s turn,” said Joyce, when the 
giggling that followed Eugenia’s tale had subsided. 
“ What mischief did you get into, Betty ? ” 

Before she could reply there was a step in the hall, 
a tap at the open door, and a pleasant voice said : 
“ Good morning, young ladies.” 

“ Oh, it is the minister’s wife, Mrs. Brewster,” 
whispered Lloyd, jumping up from the sofa and 
going forward to greet her. 

There was no need of introductions, for the girls 
had met the sweet-faced old lady several times. 

“Mothah isn’t heah, Mrs. Brewster,” said Lloyd. 
“ She went to town this mawnin’ on the early train, 
but we are lookin’ fo’ her to come on this next train. 


176 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

And we are just dyin’ fo’ company, ou’ selves. Won’t 
you come in an’ wait, please ? ” 

Involuntarily on her arrival the girls stopped loll- 
ing in their chairs, and sat up straight, with their 
hands folded primly in their laps. Mrs. Brewster 
had an air of quiet dignity that always made people 
want to be on their best behaviour before her. Every 
one in the Valley was fond of the minister’s wife, 
but most people stood in awe of her, and considered 
the turn of their sentences and the pitch of their 

voices when talking to her. She never had a pin 

$ 

awry. Her gray hair was always as smooth as a 
brush could make it, and every breadth of her skirts 
always fell in straight, precise folds. From bonnet- 
strings to shoe-laces there was never a wrinkle or a 
spot. But the Little Colonel felt no awe. She had 
discovered that under that prim exterior was a heart 
thoroughly in sympathy with all her childish joys 
and griefs, and in consequence the two had become 
warm friends. Lloyd stood beside the rocking-chair, 
where she had seated Mrs. Brewster, and waved a 
big fan so vigorously that the bonnet-strings fluttered, 
and a lock of gray hair was blown out of place and 
straggled across the placid brow. 

“ We were tellin’ each othah about some of the 
worst things we evah did in ou’ lives, Mrs. Brewster,” 


SOME STORIES AND A POEM. IJJ 

said Lloyd. “ Won’t you tell us about some of the 
things you did when you were a naughty little girl ? ” 

Mrs. Brewster laughed. Few people would have 
remembered that she had ever been a little girl, and 
only the Little Colonel would have dared to intimate 
that she had been a naughty one, for she was one of 
those dignified persons who look as if they had 
always been proper and grown up. 

“ That is a long time ago to look back to, dear,” 

* 

she began. “ I was very strictly brought up, and the 
training of my conscience began so early that I was 
always a good child in the main, I think. I was 
more timid than my brothers and sisters, which may 
account for some of my goodness, and for the most 
daring deed I ever did, I was punished so severely 
that it had a restraining effect on me ever after.” 

“ What was that ? ” asked Lloyd, with such an air 
of interest, that Mrs. Brewster, looking around on 
the listening faces, was beguiled into telling it. 

“ It was when we lived in a little New England 
village, and I was about eight years old. Although 
I was a very quiet child, I dearly loved company, and 
always felt a delicious thrill of excitement when I 
heard that the Dorcas Sewing Society was to be 
entertained at our house, or that some one was com- 
ing to tea. Mother thought that growing children 


178 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

should eat only the simplest, most wholesome dishes, ' 
so usually we had very frugal fare. But on state 
occasions a great many tempting goodies were set 
out. I remember that we always had spiced buns 
and tarts and a certain kind of plum marmalade that 
mother had great skill in making. It was highly 
praised by every one. But it was not alone for these 
things that I was in a state of complete happiness 
from the time the company arrived until they 
departed. I enjoyed listening to every word that 
was said. An hour before the guests began to 
arrive I would station myself at the window to watch 
for them. I loved to see the ladies stepping primly 
down the garden path in their best gowns, between 
the stiff borders of box and privet, stopping to 
admire mother’s hollyhocks or laburnum bushes. 

“ Children were seen and not heard in those days, 
and as soon as they had been ushered into the guest- 
chamber, where they laid aside their wraps, and had 
seated themselves in the parlour, I used to carry my 
little stool in and sit down in one corner to listen. 

“ One autumn it happened that fbr several reasons 
mother had had no invited company for weeks. I was 
hungry for some of the tarts and marmalade that I 
knew would appear if the guests would only arrive, 
and one night a plan came into my head that seemed 


4 


SOME STORIES AND A POEM. 1 79 

to me so clever that I could hardly wait for morning 
to come, in order that I might carry it out. 

“ Mother sent me on an errand to the village store 
next day, and on the way I stopped at the doctor’s 
house. I could scarcely reach the great brass knocker 
on the front door, but when I did, standing on tiptoe, 
it sent such a loud clamour through the house that 
my heart jumped up in my throat, and I was minded 
to run away. But before I could do that the doctor’s 
wife opened the door. I made my best courtesy 
that mother had carefully taught me, and then was 
so embarrassed I could not lift my eyes from the 
ground. When I spoke, my voice sounded so meek 
and shy and high up in the air that I scarcely recog- 
nised it as mine. 

« 4 Mrs. Mayfair, please come to tea to-morrow,’ I 
said. Then I courtesied again, and hurried^off, while 
Mrs. Mayfair was calling after me to tell my mother 
that it gave her great pleasure to accept her invita- 
tion. But you see it wasn’t mother’s invitation. I 
didn’t say ‘ mother says please come to tea.’ I just 
asked them to come of my own accord, in a fit of 
reckless daring, and then waited to see what would 
happen. I invited nearly all the Dorcas Society.” 

“And what happened?” asked the* Little Colonel, 
eagerly. 


l80 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

Mrs. Brewster laughed at the remembrance, such 
a contagious, hearty laugh, that her bonnet-ribbons 
shook. 

“ I never said a word about it at home, but next 
day, a little while before sundown, I went to the 
window to watch for them. Mother, who had been 
busy all day, boiling cider and making apple-butter, 
sat down with her knitting to rest a few minutes 
before supper. She said she was tired, and that she 
would not cook much ; that mush and milk would 
be enough. 

“ She couldn’t imagine what had happened when 
all the ladies appeared, and she sent me to open the 
door while she hurried to change her dress. I fol- 
lowed the usual programme ; invited them into the 
guest-chamber to lay aside their wraps and mantles, 
and then gave them seats in the parlour. Mother was 
puzzled when she came in and saw them with their 
bonnets off, for she supposed, when she saw them 
coming down the path, that they were a committee 
from the Dorcas Society, on some business. But 
presently one of the ladies patted me on the head, 
and complimented my pretty manners in delivering 
the invitation to tea. 

"If a piece of the sky had fallen, mother could 
not have been more surprised, but she gave no sign 


SOME STORIES AND A POEM. l8l 

of it then. She only smiled and made a pleasant 
answer. 

“I began to feel very comfortable, and to con- 
gratulate myself on the success of my little plan. 
Presently she excused herself, and beckoned me to 
follow her out of the room. Without a word, or 
even a glance of reproach, she bade me run across 
the street and ask my Aunt Rachel and her daugh- 
ter Milly to come over at once and help her prepare 
for the unexpected guests. They were both of 
them quick, capable women and fine housekeepers, 
and ‘flew around,’ as they expressed it, in such a 
marvellous way that at the proper time the custom- 
ary feast was spread. 

“ It did look so good ! I walked around the table, 
my mouth watering as I looked at the tarts and 
marmalade and spiced buns, and all the other tempt- 
ing dishes. Mother watched me do it, and then, 
just before she invited the ladies out to the table, 
she sent me off to bed without a morsel to eat, — not 
even a spoonful of mush and milk. 

“ I lay in an adjoining room, listening to the clatter 
of knives and forks, and the ladylike hum of conver- 
sation, and knew that the good things were slowly 
but surely disappearing, and that I could not have 
a taste. I was so hungry and disappointed that I 


1 82 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

cried myself to sleep. That disappointment and the 
lecture which followed next morning was punishment 
enough, and you may be sure that that was the last 
time I ever invited my mother’s friends on my own 
responsibility.” 

Mrs. Brewster paused amid the girls’ laughing 
exclamations, and just then Mrs. Sherman came in 
from the train, hot and dusty, and her arms full of 
little packages. “ Come on up to my room with me,” 
she said to Mrs. Brewster, who was a frequent and 
familiar visitor at Locust. 

“ Don’t take her away,” begged the Little Colonel, 
“ she is entertaining us.” 

“ My turn now,” laughed Mrs. Sherman. And the 
two ladies went up-stairs, once more leaving the girls 
to the task of providing their own amusement. 

“ Wasn’t that a picture?” said Joyce, when Mrs. 
Brewster had left the room. “ Can’t you just see it ? 
that quaint little girl in her old-fashioned dress, going 
from door to door with her courtesies and her invita- 
tions, and, afterward, all the ladies coming down the 
stiff-bordered path between the rows of hollyhocks. 
I’d love to draw that picture if I could.” 

“ Try it,” urged the girls, so warmly that Joyce went 
up-stairs for her drawing material. Betty watched 
her spread her paper on the library table. “ I believe 


SOME STORIES AND A POEM. 183 

that I could put that story into rhyme,” she said, 
after a few minutes of silent thought. “ I can feel 
it humming in my head.” 

“ Oh, I didn’t know that you could write poetry,” 
exclaimed Lloyd. “Try it now, and see what you 
can do. You write the poem, and Joyce will illus- 
trate it.” 

“ I have to be by myself when I write, and I never 
know how long it will take. It is like making butter. 
Sometimes it will come in a few minutes, and some- 
times I have to churn away for hours.” 

“ Begin, anyhow ! ” insisted the girls, and in a few 
minutes Betty slipped away to her room. At lunch- 
time they teased her to show them what she had 
written, but she had only a few lines completed, and 
would not let them see even the paper on which she 
had been scribbling. After lunch the others went to 
their rooms to write letters and sleep awhile, but she 
went back to her task. Joyce’s picture did not turn 
out to her satisfaction, and she tore it up, but Betty 
did her work over and over, rewriting each line many 
times. When they were all dressed for dinner, she 
did not appear. Finally Joyce went to see what 
kept her so long. She found her bending over the 
paper, her cheeks flushed and her eyes shining. 

“ It is done,” she cried, writing the last word with 


184 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

a flourish, “but I hadn’t any idea it was so late. 
I thought I had been up here only a few minutes. 
Some of the rhymes just wouldn't twist into shape, 
but I think they fit now.” 

“ I’m going to take it down and show it to the girls, 
while you dress,” cried Joyce, catching up the paper 
and running off with it. Although Betty knew the 
time was short and she ought to hurry, she could not 
resist stealing to the banister and leaning over to hear 
how it sounded when her godmother, who was sitting 
in the lower hall with Lloyd and Eugenia, read it 
aloud. 

Jemima Araminta knew 
Whenever company 

Sat round the frugal board, they had 
Plum marmalade for tea. 

And spiced buns and toothsome tarts, 

And divers sweets beside, 

Were set to tempt the appetite 
With good housewifely pride. 

While walking out one day, it chanced 
She fell a-pondering sore. 

A wicked thought in her small mind 
Did tempt her more and more. 

At all the neighbours’ doors she paused, 

Demure and shy was she. 

With downcast eyes, she courtesied, 

And said, “ Please come to tea." 


SOME STORIES AND A POEM. 1 85 

Next day along the garden path, 

Just as the sun went down, 

A score of ladies primly walked, 

Each in her Sabbath gown. 

Surprised, her mother heard them say, 

“ Dear child ! So shy is she ! 

What pretty manners she did have 
When asking us to tea.” 

Jemima now remembers well 
They once had company, 

Preserves and buns and toothsome tarts 
When ne’er a taste had she. 

For, supperless, to bed that night, 

She went, severely chid ; 

No more the neighbours to invite, 

Save at her mother’s bid. 

“ Bravo ! little girl,” cried Mrs. Sherman, while the 
girls clapped loudly. “ Have you anything else with 
you that you have written ? If you have, bring it 
down with you when you come.” 

“ Yes, godmother,” answered Betty, over the ban- 
ister, blushing until she could feel her cheeks burn. 
She was all a-tingle at the thought of her godmother 
seeing her verses. She wanted her to see them, and 
yet, — she couldn't take down her old ledger for them 
all to read and criticise. Not for worlds would she have 
Eugenia read her verses on “ Friendship,” and there 


1 86 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

was one about “ Dead Hopes ” that she felt none 
of them would understand. They might even laugh 
at it. 

Several minutes went by before she could make up 
her mind. When she went down-stairs she had put 
the old ledger back into her trunk and carried only 
one of the loose leaves in her hands. 

“ I’ll show the others to godmother sometime when 
we are alone,” she said to herself, as she went shyly 
up to the group waiting for her. “ Here is one I 
called * Night, ’ ” she said, her cheeks flaming with 
embarrassment. “There are four verses.” 

Mrs. Sherman took it, and, glancing down the 
lines, read aloud the little poem, commencing : 

“ Oh, peaceful Night, thou shadowy Queen 
Who rules the realms of shade, 

Thy throne is on the heaven’s arch. 

Thy crown of stars is made.” 

“ Oh, Betty, that’s splendid ! ” cried the girls, in 
chorus. “How could you think of it ? ” 

“It is remarkably good for a little girl of twelve,” 
said Mrs. Sherman, glancing over the last verses 
again. “But I am not surprised. Your mother 
wrote some beautiful things. She scribbled verses 
all the time.” 


SOME STORIES AND A POEM. 1 87 

“ Oh, I didn’t know that ! ” cried Betty. “ How I 
wish I could see some of them ! ” 

“You shall, my dear! I have an old portfolio in 
the library, full of such things. Poems that she 
wrote and pictures that Joyce’s mother drew ; cari- 
catures of the professors, the little pen and ink 
sketches of the places in the Valley we loved the 
best. I’ll get them out for you, after dinner. You 
will all be interested in them, especially in a journal 
they kept for me one summer when I was at the 
seashore. One kept a record of all that happened 
in the Valley during my absence, and the other 
illustrated it.” 

“ Dinner is ready now,” said Lloyd, jumping up 
as the maid opened the dining-room door. As they 
all rose to go in, Mrs. Sherman lingered a mo- 
ment in the hall, to take the paper from Betty’s 
hand. 

“ Will you give me this little poem, dear ? ” she 
asked, slipping an arm around the child’s waist. “ I 
am very proud of my little god-daughter. The world 
will hear from you some day, if you keep on singing. 
Just do your bravest and best, and it will be glad to 
listen to your music.” 

She stooped and kissed Betty lightly on the fore- 
head. It was as if she had set the seal of her 


1 88 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 


approval upon her, and to be approved by her beauti- 
ful godmother, — ah, that meant more to the devoted 
little heart than any one could dream ; far more, even, 
than if she had been made the proud laureate of a 
queen. 


CHAPTER XII. 


A PILLOW-CASE PARTY. 

They were all sitting on the vine-covered porch, 
looking out between the tall white pillars into the 
sultry June darkness. The light from the hall lamp 
streamed across the steps where the four Bobs rolled 
and tumbled around over each other, but except for 
that one broad path of light they could see nothing. 
There was not even starlight. 

“ How hot and still it is,” said Mrs. Sherman. 
“ There doesn’t seem to be a leaf stirring, and there’s 
not a star in sight. I think it will surely storm 
before morning.” 

“ Betty,” said Joyce, “your * shadowy queen who 
rules the realms of shade’ has forgotten to put on 
her crown. Now if I could write poetry like some 
people I know, I would write an ode to Night and 
compare it to a stack of black cats. It wouldn’t 
sound so pretty as your description, but it would be 
nearer the truth.” 

“ Well, cats or queens, it doesn’t make any differ- 

189 


I90 THE LITTLE CO LONE VS HOUSE PARTY. 

ence what you call it,” said the Little Colonel, “ it’s 
the stupidest night I evah saw. I wish something 
would happen. It seems ages since we have done 
anything lively. Now that we are ovah the measles 
it’s wastin’ time to be sittin’ heah so poky and stupid. 
What can we do, mothah ? ” 

“ Let’s tell ghost stories,” said Mrs. Sherman, who 
knew what was going to happen in a short time, and 
wanted to keep the girls occupied until then. “ I 
know a fine one,” she began, sinking her voice to a 
creepy undertone that made the girls cast uneasy 
glances behind them. “It’s all about a haunted 
house that has clanking chains in the cellar, and 
muffled footsteps, and icy fingers that c-lutch you 
by the throat on the stairs as the clock tolls the 
midnight hour.” 

“ Ugh ! How good and spooky ! ” said Joyce, with 
a little shiver. “ I love that kind.” 

They drew their chairs around Mrs. Sherman to 
listen, so interested in the story that two of the Bobs 
rolled over each other and off the high porch, and 
nobody noticed their whining. Presently, in the most 
thrilling part of her story, Mrs. Sherman paused and 
pointed impressively down the avenue. 

“ O0-00-00 ! what is it ? Ghosts ? ” shrieked the 
Little Colonel, her teeth chattering, and in such 


A PILLOW-CASE PAP TV. 191 

haste to throw herself into her mother’s arms that 
her chair turned over with a bang. 

“It is a pillow-case party,” answered Mrs. Sher- 
man, laughing, “ but it is certainly the most ghostly- 
looking affair that I ever saw.” 

Down the long avenue toward them came a waver- 
ing line of white-sheeted, masked figures. They had 
square heads, and great round holes for eyes, and the 
candle that each one carried flashed across a hideous 
grinning face, whose mouth and nose had been drawn 
with burnt cork. The leader of this strange proces- 
sion was a veritable giant, — the Goliath of all the 
ghosts, — for he loomed up above them to nearly 
twice the height of the tallest one in the line. It 
took two sheets to cover him ; one flapped about his 
long thin legs, and one swung from his shoulders, 
swaying from side to side as he moved noiselessly 
along with gigantic strides. 

“ Oh, mothah, it’s awful ! ” whispered the Little 
Colonel, clinging around Mrs. Sherman’s neck. 

“ It is almost enough to frighten one,” she replied. 
“ But they are all friends of yours, Lloyd. For in- 
stance, the giant is nobody but your good friend and 
playfellow, Robby Moore, on stilts ; and somewhere 
in that bunch of little tots at the tail end of the pro- 
cession are those funny little Cassidy twins, Bethel 


192 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE TATTY. 

and Ethel. They begged so hard to be allowed to 
come that their mother at last consented, although 
they are only six years old. She said she would 
dress up in a sheet and pillow-case herself, and come 
with them, to see that nothing happened to them, so 
I suppose she is somewhere in the line. I was told 
that everybody in the neighbourhood was coming; 
old people as well as children, but I’ll leave you to 
find out for yourself, as the fun of a party like this 
is in the guessing. They will unmask before they 
go home.” 

The procession glided on in silence until it reached 
the house, and then ranged itself in a long line in 
front of the group on the porch. 

“ There are thirty-eight,” whispered Joyce. “I 
counted them. Isn’t that one at the end funny ? 
That one in a bolster-case tied at the top, and his 
hands sticking out of the slits at the sides, like fishes’ 
fins. I’m almost sure that it is Keith. I could tell 
if I could only see his hands, but he has white stock- 
ings drawn over them.” 

The figures began waving to and fro, faster and 
faster, until they were all drawn into a weird, uncanny 
dance, in which each one flapped or writhed or 
swayed back and forth as he pleased, in ghostly 
silence. The movements of the ones in the bolster- 


A PILLOW-CASE PAP TV. 


193 


cases were the most comical, and the little audience 
on the porch laughed until they could only gasp and 
hold their sides. 

At a signal from the tall leader, the sheeted party 
suddenly divided, half of the masked faces grinning 
on one side of the steps, and half going to the other. 
Then an auction began, one side being sold to the 
other. „ The bidding was all in pantomime, and they 
all looked so much alike that nobody knew whom he 
was bidding for, or to whom he was knocked down. 
The giant was the auctioneer. 

At last each bidder was provided with a partner, 
and two by two they all went gravely up the steps to 
shake hands with Mrs. Sherman and the girls. 
Every one spoke in an assumed voice, and recognition 
was almost impossible. The girls talked with every 
one in turn, but Rob and Keith were the only boys 
they had recognised when the signal for unmasking 
was given, and little Bethel Cassidy was the only 
girl. They knew her queer little lisp. 

Cake and sherbet were brought out, and great was 
everybody’s astonishment when masks were slipped 
off, and the pillow-cases jerked away from the wear- 
ers’ rumpled hair. To Keith’s disgust, he found that 
the partner whom he had bid for energetically, think- 
ing it was Sally Fairfax, was only his brother Mai- 


194 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

colm, and Malcolm teased him all evening' by quoting 
aloud some of the complimentary speeches Keith 
had whispered to him under cover of their disguises. 

“ Oh, gracious ! ” roared Malcolm. “ It was too 
funny ; Keith, fanning me with one of those stubby 
little stocking-covered fins of his, and making com- 
plimentary speeches about my eyes. Told me he 
would know them anywhere. And he spouted poetry, 
he did,” added Malcolm, doubling up with another 
laugh. “ Oh, it was too good ! Hi, Buddy,” chucking 
Keith under the chin, “ are you of the same opinion 
still ? Ain’t they pretty, * mine eyes so blue and 
tender ? ’ ” 

“ Aw, hush ! ” growled Keith, in a shamefaced 
sort of way, adding, in a savage undertone, “ I’ll 
make black eyes of ’em if you don’t stop.” 

That was not the only odd assortment of partners, 
for Miss Allison had bid for plump little Mrs. 
Cassidy, thinking it was one of the boys in her 
Sunday school class ; and one little maid of seven 
found that an old bachelor uncle had fallen to her 
lot. 

“ You see we made a wholesale affair of it,” said 
Miss Allison to Eugenia. “We drove around the 
neighbourhood in two big wagonettes, and picked 
up whole families at a time.” 


A PILLOW-CASE PARTY. 1 95 

“ It is the j oiliest surprise I ever saw,” answered 
Eugenia, looking all around at the little groups 
laughing and talking over their refreshments. “It 
is hard to tell which are having the best time, the 
children or the grown people ; they are all mixed 
up together.” 

As she spoke the buzz of voices ceased, for there 
was a sudden blinding flash of lightning and a loud 
peal of thunder that made the windows rattle. The 
storm which Mrs. Sherman had predicted would 
come before morning, had crept up unnoticed, and 
caught them unawares. 

“Come inside!” cried Mrs. Sherman, as, with a 
furious rush and roar the wind swept across them, 
banging window shutters, whirling leaves and gravel 
in their faces, and lashing the trees until they were 
bent almost double. Another blinding glare of 
lightning followed, with such a crash of thunder that 
Eugenia put her fingers in her ears and screamed, 
and Betty hid her face in her hands. 

“Hurry!” cried Mrs. Sherman. “I am afraid 
that some of these flying shingles, or whatever they 
are, will hurt some one. It is almost a cyclone.” 

Breathless and excited, they all hurried into the 
house, and banged the great front door in the face 
of the storm. The children tumbled into the draw- 


196 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

ing-room, the smaller ones huddling in a frightened 
heap in the middle of the floor, until the fury of the 
storm was over. There was nothing to do but wait 
with bated breath after each vivid flash of lightning 
for the terrific crash that always followed, and listen 
to the wind outside as it fought with the sturdy 
tree-tops. Now and then a limb snapped in the 
fierce struggle, and fell to the ground with a loud 
crackling noise. 

“ I hope there will be enough of a roof left over 
our heads to shelter us,” said Mrs. Sherman, as 
bricks from the chimney tops began rolling down the 
roof and falling to the ground below with heavy 
thuds. 

“We expected to start home about this time,” 
Miss Allison was saying. “We ordered the wagon- 
ettes to come back for us at ten o’clock, but it looks 
now as if we are storm-bound for the night. Did 
you ever hear such a downpour ? ” 

“ It’s the clatter of the rain on the tin roof of the 
porch,” answered Mrs. Sherman, speaking at the top 
of her voice in order to be heard above the deafening 
din of the rain and wind. 

For nearly half an hour they sat waiting for the 
storm to pass. Several games were proposed, but 
none of the children wanted to play. They seemed 


A PILLOW-CASE PARTY. 


197 


to feel more comfortable when they were snuggled 
up close against some grown person, or holding some 
elderly protecting hand. But gradually the lightning 
grew fainter and fainter, and the thunder went 
growling away in the distance, although the rain kept 
steadily on. Mrs. Sherman called for some music 
in the drawing-room, and while Miss Allison and 
Mrs. Cassidy played the liveliest duets they knew, 
the children drifted out into the hall and over the 
house as they pleased. 

Most of the older boys and girls sat on the stairs 
in groups of twos and threes, while from the upper 
hall the scurry of feet, and the singsong cry that 
London Bridge was falling down, showed what the 
little ones were playing. It was after eleven o’clock 
when the wagonettes came rumbling up to the door. 
The rain had stopped, and a few stars were beginning 
to struggle through the clouds. 

“ How cold and damp it is ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Sher- 
man, as she stepped out on the front porch. “The 
thermometer must have fallen twenty degrees since 
you came. You will all need wraps of some kind. 
Wait till I can get you some shawls and things.” 

“No, indeed!” every one protested. “We will 
wrap up in our sheets again. We do not need any- 
thing else.” 


198 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

There was a laughing scrimmage over the pile of 
sheets that had been thrown hastily into one corner 
of the hall, when the party ran in out of the storm. 
Nearly all the masks and pillow-cases were put on 
again, too, so that the party broke up in laughing 
confusion. Nobody recognised his neighbour or 
knew who he was bumping against as he hurried 
up to bid his perplexed hostess good night. 

With a great cracking of whips and creaking 
of wheels the spectral party drove off, to the tune of 
“Good-night, ladies, we’re going to leave you now.” 
Far down the road the chorus came floating back 
to the listeners on the porch, “ Merrily we roll along, 
roll along, roll along.” 

“ Wasn’t it funny ? ” yawned Lloyd, as she went 
sleepily up the stairs. “But oh, I’m so tiahed. I 
believe if they had stayed much longah, I’d have 
fallen ovah in a heap on the flo’.” 

All the lights were out down-stairs, and the girls 
were nearly undressed, when they were surprised 
to hear one of the wagonettes coming back. A 
frantic clang of the knocker on the front door 
brought them all to the windows. 

“ Oh, Mrs. Sherman ! ” cried an agonised voice 
out of the darkness, that they recognised as Mrs- 
Cassidy’s, “ are the twins here ? Bethel and Ethel ? 


A PILLOW-CASE PARTY. 


199 


We can’t find them anywhere. I was sure that I 
lifted them into the wagonette myself, but every one 
was so disguised that I must have mistaken somebody 
else’s children for mine.” 

“They are not in either wagonette,” added Rob 
Moore’s voice. “We never thought to count noses 
until we reached the Cassidy place, and then we found 
they were missing.” 

Hastily slipping into a wrapper, Mrs. Sherman ran 
down-stairs with a candle in her hand, and opened 
the front door. Plump little Mrs. Cassidy was 
standing there, wringing her hands. 

“ Oh, don t tell me that they are not here ! ” she 
cried. “ Didn’t you see them when you were locking 
up. the house after we left ? Then I know they’re 
lost. They must have slipped away from the porch 
before the storm came up, and were playing outside 
somewhere when we all ran inside and shut the door. 
Oh, my babies ! ” she wailed. “ If they were out 
in all that awful storm it has killed them, I know. 
Oh, why did I do such a foolish thing as to bring 
them ? They were too little to come, I knew that. 
But they begged so hard, and they looked so cute in 
those little ruffled pillow-cases, that I hadn’t the 
heart to refuse. Oh, what shall I do ? ” 

“They must be somewhere about the house,” said 


200 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

Mrs. Sherman, with such decision that Mrs. Cassidy 
was comforted, and began wiping her eyes. 

“ Come in, and help me search. Maybe they 
slipped up-stairs when the other children were play- 
ing, and went to sleep in some dark corner. Come 
on, boys. Light up the house from attic to cellar, 
and see who will be first to find them. It will 
be a game of hunt the twins, instead of hunt the 
slipper.” 

Then up-stairs, and down-stairs, and in my lady’s 
chamber, went a strange procession, for nearly every 
one was still draped in sheet and pillow-case. Into 
closets, behind screens, in all the corners, and under 
all the beds they looked. Keith, remembering the 
sad story of Ginevra, even lifted the lid of every 
chest and trunk in the linen room. Poor little Mrs. 
Cassidy followed, wringing her hands, and sobbing 
that she knew that they had been shut outside in the 
storm and the night. Suddenly, when they had been 
all over the house for the third time, she caught up 
a lamp, and ran out in the dark, like some poor mad 
creature, calling, “ Oh, Bethel ! Oh, my little Ethel ! 
Don’t you hear your mother ? ” 

By this time, the servants’ quarters were aroused, 
and Mrs. Sherman, now really alarmed, called for 
Walker and Alec to bring lanterns. The lawn was 


A PILLOW-CASE PARTY. 


201 


a wreck, strewn with leaves and fallen limbs and 
pieces of broken flower urns that had been overturned 
by the wind. The searchers stumbled over them as 
they waded through the wet grass, looking in every 
nook and comer where it was possible for a child 
to have strayed, but their search was in vain. Never 
a trace did they find of the lost twins. 

“Stay in the house, girls,” said Mrs. Sherman, 
as she caught up the trail of her wrapper, and 
ran out to follow the flickering lanterns and Mrs. 
Cassidy’s frantic cries. “It might give you your 
death of cold to expose yourselves so soon after the 
measles.” 

As they stood in the door watching the wavering 
lights, Lloyd exclaimed, “ The puppies are gone, too. 
I wonder where they can be. Maybe they were left 
outside in the storm when we all ran indoors in such 
a hurry. Maybe the twins were playing with them.” 

She leaned out of the door, peering into the night. 
“ Heah, Bob ! ” she called, snapping her fingers, and 
whistling the shrill signal she always gave when she 
fed them. There was no response from the darkness 
outside, and she turned indoors repeating the whistle, 
and calling, “ Heah, Bob ! Heah, puppy ! Come to yo’ 
miss ! ” 

In answer there was a stir under the low Persian 


202 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

couch in the library, then a whine, and an inquiring 
little nose was thrust through the heavy knotted 
fringe that draped the lower part of the couch. The 
next instant Lloyd’s Bob came sprawling joyously 
toward her, his pink bow cocked rakishly over one 
ear. Lloyd dropped on her knees, and, lifting the 
fringe, looked under. Then she gave an excited 
scream. 

“ Heah they are ! ” she called. “ I’ve found them ! 
Heah’s the twins, and all the Bobs ! ” 

“ They’re found ! ” called Joyce, running out on the 
porch and shouting the news until the searchers 
farthest from the house heard, and ran joyfully back. 
“ They’re found ! Lloyd’s found them ! ” 

“ Who ever would have thought of squeezing into 
such a place as that ? ” said Miss Allison, as she came 
running in, out of breath. “ I started to look under 
that couch twice, but it was so low I thought they 
couldn’t possibly have crawled under. Besides, some 
one was sitting on it all evening, and they surely 
would have been seen if they had attempted it.” 

Rob and Malcolm lifted the couch and set it aside, 
and there, curled up on two fat sofa cushions, with 
the puppies beside them, lay the twins fast asleep. 
Great beads of perspiration stood on their foreheads 
and trickled down their dimpled faces. Their hair 


A PILLOW-CASE PARTY. 


203 


curled in little wet rings all over their heads, and 
their chubby arms and necks were red with prickly 
heat. 

“ It is a wonder that they weren’t smothered,” 
cried Mrs. Cassidy, taking them up in her arms and 
waking them with her tearful kisses. “ Oh, why 
did you hide away from mother, precious ? ” she 
asked, reproachfully, as Bethel’s eyes opened with 
a dazed stare at the crowd of faces around her. She 
leaned her head heavily on her mother’s shoulder, for 
she was not fully awake, and clung around her neck 
with both arms. Finally, in answer to the chorus of 
questions that came from all sides, she roused enough 
to answer. 

“ It lightened, that’s why we hid. Mammy Chloe 
thed if you go get in a dark plathe on a pile of feath- 
eths, no lightnin’ can hurt you. Mammy Chloe always 
puth uth in the middle of her feather-bed. Tho me 
and thithter took a thofa pillow and got under the 
thofa and shut our eyeth tight. We wath hot,” 
she added, gravely, “and tho wath the puppieth, 
but the lightnin’ couldn’t get uth.” 

The laugh that went up from the amused listeners 
aroused both the twins so thoroughly that they joined 
in without knowing what they were laughing about. 
Then Alec and Walker carried them triumphantly on 


204 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

their shoulders to the wagonette, and once more the 
party started homeward. This time they moved off 
without singing, but from the gate came back three 
cheers for the twins, then three cheers for the Little 
Colonel, who had found them. Once started to 
cheering, somebody proposed three for the pillow- 
case party, and so lustily did they give them, that 
an old rooster, awakening from sleep as the wheels 
creaked by, thought it the call of some giant chanti- 
cleer, and promptly crowed an answering challenge, 
that was echoed by every cock in the Valley. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


MORE MEASLES. 

It seemed to Betty that that night would never end. 
It was after midnight before the house grew quiet. 
Then, whenever she closed her eyes, she could see 
those ghostly figures dancing before her in a long, 
white wavering line. After awhile she gave up the 
attempt to sleep, and lay with her eyes wide open, 
staring into the darkness, alert, and quivering at the 
slightest sound. 

“I don’t know what makes me so nervous,” she 
thought. “ I feel as if I should fly, and the dark 
seems so horrible, as if it was full of creepy, crawling 
things, with horns and claws. ,, 

A beetle boomed against the window, striking the 
pane with a heavy thud. She drew the sheet over 
her head and shivered. “ Maybe if I’d read awhile it 
would make me sleepy,” she thought, and, slipping 
softly out of bed, she groped her way across the room 
in the dark to the dressing-table. Lighting a candle 
in one of the crystal candlesticks that always re- 
205 


206 the little colonels house party. 

minded her of twisted icicles, she put it on a stand 
beside her bed. The light flickered unsteadily, but 
she piled the pillows up behind her and settled herself 
to read. 

It was a new book that she was greatly interested 
in, and before long she was so deep in the story that 
she never noticed how the time was flying. Instead 
of bringing sleep to her eyes, it seemed to drive it 
farther and farther away. The candle burned lower 
and lower, but she never noticed it, and read on by 
its unsteady light until she heard the hall clock strike 
four. The candle was flickering in its socket, and the 
June dawn was beginning to streak the sky. Her 
eyes smarted and burned, and ached with a dull 
throbbing pain. 

She turned over and went to sleep then, and slept 
so heavily that she did not hear the noises of the 
awakening household. Once Mrs. Sherman came 
to the door and peeped in, but, finding her asleep, 
tiptoed out again. It was nearly noon when she 
awoke, feeling as tired as when she went to bed. 
She dressed languidly and went down-stairs, but was 
so unlike her usually sunny self, that Mrs. Sherman 
watched her anxiously. Late in the afternoon she 
sent for Doctor Fuller, and a general wail went up 
when he announced what was the matter with her. 


MORE MEASLES. 


207 


* More measles, Mrs. Sherman,” he said, cheer- 
fully. “Well, this is the most extraordinary house 
party I ever heard of. You seem to be exceedingly 
partial to this one line of amusements.” 

“ It isn’t fair for Betty to have it,” exclaimed 
Joyce, “when she wouldn’t go to the camp, and 
she’s had it before ! It’s just too bad ! ” 

“We’ll all have to be mighty good to her,” said 
the Little Colonel, “for she was so sweet about 
amusing us. We’ll take turns reading to her and 
entertaining her, for she stayed hours with us in 
that dark room when she could have been outdoors 
enjoying herself.” 

“ That is probably the reason she is laid up now,” 
answered the doctor. “ She should have kept 
entirely away from you.” 

“ But she had had one case,” explained Mrs. 
Sherman, “and we never dreamed of her having 
another. Poor little thing ! I hope this will be light. 
She had a hard time before, so we must make a 
regular frolic of this, girls.” 

“ Well, no, madam, at least not for several days,” 
said the doctor, gravely, “ And you must be 
extremely careful about her eyes. They seem to 
be badly affected, and I must warn you that they 
are really in danger.” 


208 the little colonels house party. 

They told Betty that afterward, thinking it would 
stop her crying, when everything else failed to do so, 
if she realised how necessary it was for her not to 
inflame them with her tears. Usually she was & 
sensible little body, obedient to the slightest sugges- 
tion, but now she lay curled up in a disconsolate little 
heap in bed, sobbing as if her heart would break. 

“ Oh, I don’t want to have the measles ! ” she 
sobbed, catching her breath in great gasps. “ Oh, I 
don’t want to ! ” 

“ My dear little girl, don’t let it distress you so ! ” 
begged Mrs. Sherman, leaning over and tenderly 
wiping the flushed little face. 

“ It will not be any worse for you than for the 
other girls, and in a few days when you feel better 
we are going to have all sorts of sport out of it. The 
girls are planning now what they shall do to make 
up to you for this disappointment. They feel as if 
they are to blame for bringing this illness upon you 
by their disobedience, and you cannot imagine how 
bad it makes them feel to have you take it to heart 
so bitterly.” 

But even that failed to stop her tears, and pres- 
dently Mrs. Sherman went out into the hall, where 
the girls were waiting for her. 

“ There is some reason for all this distress that I 


MORE MEASLES. 


209 


am unable to discover,” she said. “ Joyce, maybe 
if you would go in and talk to her you might find 
out.” 

“ She must be lots worse than we were,” whis- 
pered Eugenia to Lloyd, as the high, shrill voice, so 
unlike Betty’s usual tones, went on complainingly in 
the next room. 

“ Hush ! ” warned Lloyd. “ She’s telling Joyce 
what the matter is.” The words came out to them 
distinctly. She was speaking with a nervous quick- 
ness as if her fever had almost reached delirium. 

“ I was trying to dig one of those roads,” wailed 
Betty, in a high, querulous voice. “ One that would 
last for ever, don’t you know ? like the one they built 
for Tusitala. You do know, don’t you?” she in- 
sisted, feverishly, but Joyce had to acknowledge that 
she had never heard of it, and Betty cried again, 
because she felt too nervous and ill to explain. 

“ There, there ! never mind!” said Joyce, sooth- 
ingly, thinking that Betty’s mind was wandering. 
“ You can tell me all about it when you get well.” 

“But I want you to know now!" sobbed Betty, 
with all the unreasoning impatience of a sick child. 
“ It is all in my ‘ Good times book.’ I cut it out of 
an old Youth's Companion , just after I came, and the 
piece is inside the cover of that little white and gold 


210 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

book in the writing-desk. Read it, won’t you ? Then 
you will understand.” 

Joyce took the slip of paper to the window, and 
glanced rapidly along the lines. 

“ No, read it aloud ! ” demanded Betty, fretfully. 
“ I want to hear it, too. It is such a sweet story, and 
I read it over every day to help me remember.” 

Mrs. Sherman and the girls, sitting outside the 
door, leaned forward to listen, as Joyce read aloud 
the newspaper clipping that Betty counted among 
her chief treasures. This is what they heard : 

“THE ROAD OF THE LOVING HEART.”* 

“ Remembering the great love of his highness, Tusitala, 
and his loving care when we were in prison and sore distressed, 
we have prepared him an enduring present, this road which 
we have dug for ever.” 

In a far-off island, thousands of miles from the mainland, 
and unconnected with the world by cable, stands this inscrip- 
tion. It was set up at the corner of a new road, cut through 
a tropical jungle, and bears at its head the title of this 
article, signed by the names of ten prominent chiefs. This 
is the story of the road, and why it was built : 

Some years ago a Scotchman, broken in health and ex- 
pecting an early death, sought out this lonely spot, because 
here the climate was favourable to the disease from which he 
suffered. He settled here for what remained to him of life. 


1 Editorial in old copy of Youth's Companion. 


MORE MEASLES. 


21 I 


He bought an estate of several hundred acres, and threw 
himself earnestly into the life of the natives of the island. 
There was great division among the many chiefs, and pro- 
longed warfare. Very soon the chiefs found that this alien 
from a strange land was their best friend. They began com- 
ing to him for counsel, and invited him to their most important 
conferences. 

Though he did not bear that name, he became a missionary 
to them. He was their hero, and they loved and trusted him 
because he tried to lead them aright. They had never had 
such a friend. And so it came about that when the wars 
ceased, the chiefs of both sides called him by a name of their 
own, and made him one of their own number, thus conferring 
upon him the highest honour within their power. 

But many of the chiefs were still in prison, because of 
their political views or deeds, and in constant danger of being 
put to death. Their sole friend was the Scotchman, whom 
they called Tusitala. He visited them, comforted them, re- 
peated passages from the history of Christ to them, and 
busied himself incessantly to effect their release. 

At length he obtained their freedom, and then, glowing 
with gratitude, in despite of age, decrepitude, and loss of 
strength, they started directly for the estate of their benefac- 
tor, and there, in the terrible heat, they laboured for weeks in 
building him a road which they knew he had long desired. 
Love conquered weakness, and they did not cease their toil 
until their handiwork, which they called “ The Road of the 
Loving Heart,” was finished. 

Not long after this the white chief suddenly died. At the 
news the native chiefs flocked from all parts of the island to 
the house, and took charge of the body. They kissed his 
hand as they came in, and all night sat in silence about him. 


212 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

One of them, a feeble old man, threw himself on his knees 
beside the body of his benefactor, and cried out between his 
sobs : 

“ I am only a poor black man, and ignorant. Yet I am not 
afraid to come and take the last look of my dead friend’s face. 
Behold, Tusitala is dead. We were in prison and he cared 
for us. The day was no longer than his kindness. Who is 
there so great as Tusitala ? Who is there more loving-com- 
passionate ? What is your love to his love ? ” 

So the chiefs took their friend to the top of a steep moun- 
tain which he had loved, and there buried him. It was a 
mighty task. 

The civilised world mourns the great author. The name of 
Robert Louis Stevenson is lastingly inwrought into English 
literature. But the Samoans mourn in his loss a brother, who 
outdid all others in loving-kindness, and so long as the island 
in the Pacific exists, Tusitala will be gratefully remembered, 
not because he was so greatly gifted, but because he was a 
good man. 

The phrase, “ The Road of the Loving Heart,” is a gospel 
in itself. “ The day is not longer than his kindness ” is a new 
beatitude. F ame dies, and honours perish, but “ loving-kind- 
ness” is immortal. 

Joyce finished and looked up inquiringly. She 
still did not see what connection the road could 
have with Betty’s distress over the measles. 

“ Now, don’t you see ? ” asked Betty, tremulously. 
“It is for godmother that I wanted to build that 
road, for ever since I came she has been like Tusi- 
tala to me. ‘ The day is no longer than her kind- 


MORE MEASLES. 


213 


ness/ Oh, Joyce, nobody knows how good she has 
been to me ! ” Then between her sobs she told 
Joyce again the story of the gold beads, and the 
many things her godmother had done to make her 
visit a continual delight. Mrs. Sherman, outside the 
door, felt her eyes grow dim and her cheeks wet, 
as the child babbled on, reciting a long list of little 
kindnesses that she had treasured in her memory, 
and that her godmother had either done uncon- 
sciously, or had forgotten long ago. 

It showed how hungry the poor little heart had 
been, that such trifles could make it brim over with 
gratitude. She wiped her eyes more than once as 
the voice went on. 

“ Of course I couldn’t dig a road like those chiefs 
did, and she wouldn’t have wanted one, even if I 
could ; but I thought maybe I could leave a memory 
behind me when this beautiful visit is done, that would 
be like a smooth, white road. You know remem- 
bering things is like looking back over a road. At 
least it always seemed that way to me, and the un- 
pleasant things that have happened are like the 
stones and rocks that we stumble over. But if 
there haven’t been any unpleasant things to remem- 
ber, then we can look back and see it stretched out 
behind us, all smooth and white and shining. 


214 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

“ So I tried from the very first of my visit to leave 
nothing behind me for her memory to stumble ovej;.; 
not a frown, a cross word, or a single disobedience. 
That’s why I wouldn’t go with you that day to have 
my fortune told. It would have spoiled my ‘ Road 
of the Loving Heart,’ and put a stone in it that would 
always have made godmother sorry when she thought 
of my visit. 

“That’s why I came back from the picnic at the 
old mill and missed the charades. It would have 
spoiled the road if I hadn’t kept my promise, — kept 
it to the utmost. And now after all the days I have 
tried so hard, it is going to be spoiled because I’ve 
gone and got sick. I’ll be so much care and trou- 
ble that the Memory Road will be all spoiled — my 
‘ Road of the Loving Heart ! ’ ” 

Betty was so exhausted by this time, that she was 
not crying any longer ; but now and then a long sob 
shook the little body from head to foot. Joyce, not 
knowing what to say, slipped away and went out into 
the hall. 

“So that is the cause of the child’s distress,” 
whispered Mrs. Sherman. “Bless her little heart, 
now I’ve found out what is the matter, maybe I can 

v 

succeed in quieting her.” 

What she said to comfort her the girls never knew, 


MORE MEASLES. 2 1 5 

for the door closed behind her and they stole away to 
their own rooms. 

But presently they heard the “White Seal’s Lul- 
laby” sung softly within. She had taken Betty in 
her arms, and was rocking her as tenderly as she 
had rocked the Little Colonel, while she sang, “ Oh, 
hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us.” 

When . Betty fell asleep it was in the embrace of 
something far more comforting and restful than the 
“arms of the slow-swinging seas.” For the first 
time in her life since she could remember, she felt 
what it was to be folded fast in the mother-love that 
she had always longed for. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


A LONG NIGHT. 

“ Oh, isn’t it awful ! ” exclaimed the Little Colonel, 
in a shocked tone, and with such a look of horror in 
her face that Eugenia leaned forward to listen. Lloyd 
was speaking to Joyce on the porch just outside of 
the library window, where Eugenia sat reading. 

“What is awful?” asked Eugenia, her curiosity 
aroused by the expression of the girls* faces. 

“ Sh ! ” whispered Lloyd, warningly, as she tiptoed 
to the window and sat down on the broad, low sill. 
“I am afraid Betty will hear us talking about her. 
The doctor has just been here, and he says — oh, 
Eugenia, it is too terrible to tell — he says he is 
afraid that Betty is going blind l” 

The tears stood in the Little Colonel’s eyes. “ You 
know that people do lose their sight sometimes when 
they have the measles, and her eyes have been the 
worst part of it from the start. The night before 
the measles broke out on her she read till nearly 
morning by candle-light, because she was restless and 
216 


A LONG NIGHT. 2\J 

couldn’t go to sleep. Of course that made them 
worse.” 

“Blind!” echoed Eugenia, closing her own eyes a 
moment on the bright summer world without, and 
feeling a chill run over her, as she realised what 
black dungeon walls those five letters could build 
around a life. 

“ Was the doctor sure, Lloyd ? Can’t something 
be done ? ” 

“ Of co’se he wasn’t suah. I heard him tell 
mothah that he wouldn’t give up fighting for her 
sight as long as there was a shadow of a chance to 
save it, but he advised her to send for an oculist 
to consult with him, and she’s just now telephoned to 
the city for one.” 

“ Does Betty know it ? ” 

“ She knows that there is dangah of her losing her 
sight, and is tryin’ so hahd to be quiet and patient.” 

Eugenia laid down her book, feeling faint and sick. 
For a long time after Lloyd and Joyce had left her 
she sat idly playing with the curtain cord, thinking 
over what they had told her. Presently she tiptoed 
up-stairs to her room. She stood a moment outside 
Betty’s door, listening, for Betty was talking to Eliot, 
and she wanted to hear what a person with such a 
prospect staring her in the face would have to say. 


21 8 THE LITTLE CO LONE US HOUSE PARTY. 

“ There are lots of beautiful things in the world to 
think about, Eliot,” Betty was saying bravely, in her 
sweet, cheery little voice. 

“ ’Specially when you’ve lived in the country and 
have all the big outdoors to remember. Now while 
I’m so hot I love to count up all the cool things I can 
remember. I like to pretend that I’m down in the 
orchard, way early in the morning, with a fresh breeze 
blowing through the apple-blossoms and the dewdrops 
shining on every blade of grass. Oh, it smells so 
fresh and sweet and delicious ! Now I’m in the 
corn-fields and the tall green corn is rustling in the 
wind, and the morning-glories climb up every stalk 
and shake the dew out of their purple bells. Now I 
can hear the bucket splash down in the well, and 
come up cold and dripping. And now I’m dabbling 
my fingers in the spring down in the old stone spring 
house, and standing on the cold, wet rocks in my 
bare feet. And there’s the winter mornings, Eliot, 
when the trees are covered with sleet till every twig 
twinkles like a diamond. And the frost on the win- 
dow-panes — oh, if I could only lay my face against 
the cold glass now, how good it would feel ! ” 

Eugenia could bear no more. She turned away 
from the door, and, meeting Mrs. Sherman on the 
threshold of her room, threw herself into her arms, 


A LONG NIGHT. 


219 


sobbing : “ Oh, Cousin Elizabeth, I can’t stand it. 
If Betty goes blind it will be all my fault ! She 
never would have had the measles if it hadn’t been 
for me. But I would go, and I made the others go, 
too. And when Betty refused I was so mean and 
hateful to her ! Oh, Cousin Elizabeth, what can I 
do?” 

Mrs. Sherman drew Eugenia into her room and 
comforted her the best she could, but her own heart 
was heavy. She knew that Doctor Fuller had little 
hope of saving Betty’s sight. 

That knowledge threw a shadow over the entire 
household. The great oculist came, and gravely 
shook his head over the case. “ There is one chance 
that she may see again,” he said, “ one in a hundred. 
That is all. Now if she could have a trained nurse 
who could watch her eyes constantly and follow direc- 
tions to the letter — ” 

“ She shall have anything ! ” interrupted Mrs. 
Sherman. “ Everything that would help in the 
smallest degree.” 

“ And it would be best not to let the child know,” 
he continued. “It would probably excite her, and, 
above all things, that must be guarded against.” 

But Betty, lying with bandaged eyes, caught a 
whisper, felt the suppressed sympathy in the atmos- 


220 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

phere, as one feels the tingle of electricity in the air 
before a storm, and began to guess the truth. When 
the trained nurse came and gave such careful atten- 
tion to the treatment of her eyes, she was sure of it. 
But she said nothing of her suspicions, and they 
thought she had none. 

One day Lloyd came into the room with a news- 
paper in her hand. Eugenia and Joyce followed 
softly. Lloyd tried to speak calmly, but there was 
a suppressed excitement in her voice as she ex- 
claimed, “ Betty, I’ve got the loveliest thing to show 
you. Mothah said I might be the one to tell, ’cause 
I’m so glad and proud, I don’t know what to do. You 
know that little poem that you gave to mothah, called 
* Night ? ’ Well, she sent it away to an editah, and he 
has published it in this papah with yo’ name at the 
bottom, — Elizabeth Lloyd Lewis ! Now aren’t you 
stuck up ? We are all so proud of you we don’t know 
what to do.” 

Betty stretched out one trembling hand for the 
paper, and involuntarily the other went up to her eyes 
to push away the bandages. “Let me see it,” she 
cried, eagerly, but the thrill of gladness in her voice 
died in a pitiful little note of despair as she whispered, 
brokenly, “ Oh, I forgot ! I can’t see ! ” 

But the next instant her hand was groping for the 


A LONG NIGHT. 


221 


paper again. “ Where is it ? ” she asked. “ Let me 
feel it, anyway. Oh, to think that something I have 
written has really been published ! Where is it, Lloyd ? 
Put my hand on the spot, please. You don’t know 
how glad I am, how glad and thankful. I have always 
wanted to write — always hoped that some day, after 
I had tried years and years, I might be able to 
do something good enough to be published, but to 
have it come now while I am a little girl,” — her 
voice sunk almost to a whisper, — “ oh, Lloyd you 
don’t know how wonderful it seems to me ! ” 

She was trembling so that the paper shook in her 
hands. “ Where is it ? ” she asked again, feeling 
blindly over the page. 

“There,” said Lloyd, placing the little groping 
finger on a spot at the head of a column. “There 
is the word NIGHT \ and heah,” guiding her fingers 
down the page, “ heah is yo’ name. If I were you 
I’d be so stuck up I wouldn’t speak to common people 
that can’t have verses published in the papah.” 

“ But — oh — if you couldn’t — see — it ! ” Betty’s 
words came in choking little gasps. She paused a 
moment and turned her face away, swallowing hard. 
Then she went on more calmly. 

“ Wasn’t it queer that I should have written about 
Night, just before mine begun ? That the only thing 


222 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

I shall ever have published should be called that ? 
My long, long night ! But there are no stars in this 
night. Lloyd, it’s awful to think you’ll always be in 
the dark ! ” 

Lloyd turned with a startled glance to the other 
girls. 

“ I — I don't know what you mean,” she stam- 
mered. 

“Yes, you do,” insisted Betty. “What you’ve 
been trying to keep from me, all of you, that I 
am always going to be — blind!” 

She ended the sentence with a little shiver, and, 
choking with sobs, turned her face to the wall. At 
a sign from the nurse, Lloyd slipped away and ran to 
her mother’s room. She found Eugenia already there, 
with her head buried in Mrs. Sherman’s lap. 

“ Oh, it almost broke my heart ! ” she was saying. 
“To see those poor little fingers groping over the 
paper feeling for the poem that she couldn’t see. And 
she said so pitifully, ‘ My long, long night ! There 
are no stars in this night ! ’ And to think it’s all my 
fault! Oh, it is just killing me! I could hardly 
sleep last night for thinking of it, and when I did 
I had a dreadful nightmare. 

“ I dreamed that I was in a great market-place 
going from stall to stall, trying to buy something, 


A LONG NIGHT. 


22 3 


but I had forgotten what it was I wanted. A horrid 
grinning little dwarf, with great fangs in his jaw, like 
a boar's tusks, followed me everywhere, carrying my 
purse. I’d stand awhile in front of every stall, try- 
ing to remember what it was I’d come for, and when 
I’d thought awhile I’d cry out, ‘Now I know what I 
want, give me my own way. It is my own way that 
I want.’ Everybody in the market would stop to 
listen, and the man behind the counter would say, 
‘Not unless you can pay the price.' 

“ Then that horrible dwarf would step up, grinning, 
his old tusks showing all hideous and yellow, and say, 

‘ Here is the price ! Give her her own way. Here 
is the price. Let the whole world see the price that 
she has paid for her own way, — Betty’s eyes is the 
price. Betty’s beautiful brown eyes ! ’ And then he 
would hold them out in his ugly knotted hand, and 
they would look up at me so reproachfully, that I 
would scream and tear my hair. I don’t know how 
many times I had to go through that scene in my 
sleep, but when I got up this morning I was as tired 
as if I had been running all night, and every place I 
turn I can see that hideous old hand thrust out at 
me with Betty’s brown eyes in it. I’ll never insist 
on having my own way again.” 

There was no time for Mrs. Sherman to comfort 


224 the little colonels house party. 

Eugenia then, for Betty needed her, and in answer 
to the nurse’s summons she hurried away to soothe 
the child, sorely distressed by this turn that the 
house party had taken. 

“Go out on the ponies for awhile,” she said, as she 
left the three girls sitting disconsolately on the floor. 
“ Go out and get some of this summer sunshine into 
your faces and voices so that you can bring it back 
to Elizabeth. She will need all that you can bring 
her, poor child ; so, instead of brooding over your 
own feelings, think of something that you can do to 
cheer her up.” 

In a little while there was a clatter of ponies’ hoofs 
down the avenue, and Mrs. Sherman, sitting by the 
window in Betty’s room, waved her hand to Eugenia, 
Joyce, and the Little Colonel as they rode away. 
They were gone all morning, and when they came 
back the June sunshine had done its work. Their 
faces were bright and smiling, and they giggled con- 
tinuously as they bumped into each other, running 
up the stairs. 

Betty’s door was open, and to their surprise they 
heard a little laugh as they stopped to peep in. She 
was lying back among the pillows with bandaged 
eyes, but there was a smile on her lips. 

“ Come in, girls,” she cried. “ Godmother and I 


A LONG NIGHT 


225 


are making alphabet rhymes. We started at A, and 
have been taking turns. She has just made a good 
one : ‘P is a pie-man, portly and proud, pugnaciously 
prattling * — What’s the rest of it, godmother ? You 
fell them. I have forgotten.” 

But Mrs. Sherman’s rhyme was broken short in 
an astonished exclamation, as her glance fell on the 
Little Colonel. 

“ Why, Lloyd Sherman ! ” she cried. “What have 
you been doing? Your dress is torn to tatters, and 
you are so dirty and dusty that I can scarcely believe 
that you are my child ! ” 

The Little Colonel screwed herself around to 
look at the back of her dress-skirt, which was torn 
into a dozen ragged strips, and fluttered behind her 
in long fringes. There was a three-cornered tear 
on the shoulder and a hole in the elbow of her 
sleeve. 

“ Reckon I must have toah it gettin’ through a bob- 
wiah fence,” she answered, cheerfully. “ But, look at 
Eugenia ! She’s as much of a sight as I am, with 
her hair hangin’ all in her eyes, like an ole witch, and 
that scratch across her face, and her stockings full of 
burrs.” 

“Joyce is nearly as bad!” cried Eugenia; “both 
hair ribbons gone, the heel lost off one shoe, grass 


226 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY , . 

stains on her dress, and her face red as a turkey 
gobbler’s, from running so fast.” 

“Where have you all been, and what have you 
been doing ? ” demanded Mrs. Sherman so emphat- 
ically that, with much giggling and exclaiming, they 
all began to talk at once. 

“We met the boys ovah on the pike,” began the 
Little Colonel, “ Malcolm and Keith and Robby, 
and we were all ridin’ along as polite as anything, 
when the boys began to tell about the good times 
they used to have playin’ Indian.” 

“ But first,” interrupted Joyce, “ Keith told about 
the time they tied his little cousin Ginger to a tree 
in the woods, and left her there until it was so dark 
she nearly had a spasm.” 

“Yes,” said Eugenia, “and I said what a pity it 
was that we were too old to play Indian ; that I had 
had the blues all day, and felt that nothing would do 
me so much good as to get out some place where 
nobody could hear, and yell and carry on at the top 
of my voice. And Malcolm said that, just for once, 
supposing we’d pretend like we were ten years old, 
instead of thirteen, and pitch in and have a good rip- 
ping, tearing old game of Indian. It was away up 
the pike, where there was nothing in sight but a few 
farmhouses, scattered along the road, and it didn’t 


A LONG NIGHT. 227 

seem as if it would make any difference, so we said 
we would.’' 

“First thing I knew,” broke in Joyce, “ Robby 
Moore gave an outlandish war-whoop right in my ear, 
that nearly deafened me, and grabbed me by my hair, 
yelling he was going to tomahawk me. And I saw 
Eugenia go sailing up the road as fast as her horse 
could carry her, with Keith after her, swinging on to 
those two long black braids of hers. You see Lloyd 
had the advantage of us with her short hair. They 
couldn’t scalp her so easily ; but Malcolm chased 
after her like all possessed.” 

“ Maybe you think it wasn’t excitin’” said the 
Little Colonel. “ I felt like a real suah ’nuff In- 
dian was aftah me, and I screeched bloody murdah 
till you could have heard me almost to the old 
mill.” 

“I should say she did!” giggled Joyce. “The 
way Tar baby got over the ground was something to 
remember, and the way Lloyd yelled would have 
made a wild coyote take to its heels. Just as we 
got in sight of the toll-gate, we met one of those 
big three-story huckster- wagons, full of chickens and 
ducks and things. You know how funny they al- 
ways look, with so many bills and legs and tails stick- 
ing through the slats. Well, the horses shied as we 


228 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

went dashing up to them, and first thing we knew 
they had backed that wagon into a ditch at the side 
of the road, and one of the coops went off the top 
ke-bang ! into the ditch.” 

“You never saw anything madder than that old 
huckster,” interrupted Eugenia. “ He jumped down 
off the wagon, and came up to us with a big whip 
in his hands, scolding, as cross as two sticks. But 
he couldn’t stay angry with those boys. They were 
so polite, and apologised, and said if they had done 
anything wrong they wanted to make it right. They 
offered to pay for the coop if it was broken, and got 
off their horses to help him lift it on to the wagon 
again. But when they took hold of it three chickens 
flopped out of the broken side, and went squawking 
across the fields.” 

“It was so funny ! ” laughed Lloyd. “ There they 
went, legs stretching, wings flapping, lickety split ! 
It made me think of Papa Jack’s story about the 
old witch : 4 she ran, she flew, she ran, she flew ! ’ 
We all told the old huckstah we’d help him catch 
them and that’s why we got so dirty.” 

“Oh, such a chase!” added Joyce. “Through 
barb-wire fences, over ploughed fields and into black- 
berry briers. That is how we got so scratched and 
torn. But we caught the chickens, and brought 


gw 



“‘BUT WE CAUGHT THE CHICKENS AND BROUGHT THEM 

BACK.’ ” 




A LONG NIGHT. 229 

them back, with feathers flying, and with them 
squawking at the tops of their voices.” 

“ What fun it must have been ! ” said Betty. “ I 
wish I could have seen you then, and I wish I could 
see you now. You must be wrecks.” 

“They are not pretty sights, I can assure you,” 
said Mrs. Sherman, laughing in spite of her disap- 
proval. “ I’m astonished that you would make such 
a commotion on a public road, and I’m afraid I would 
have to lecture you a little if I were not sure that 
you would never do it again. Run along now and 
make yourselves presentable for lunch, and first 
thing you do, look in your mirrors. You’ll not be 
charmed, I’m sure.” 

“One little, two little, three little Indians,” sang 
Betty, as they skipped out of the room, hand in 
hand, and Joyce whispered in the hall, “How can 
she be so cheerful ? She’s the bravest little thing 
I ever saw.” 

They learned the secret of her cheerfulness next 
time they went to her room. She turned to them 
with a wistful little smile, sadder, somehow, than 
tears, saying, “Godmother has helped me to find 
some stars in my long night, girls. She told me 
about Milton. I didn’t know before that he was 
blind when he wrote ‘ Paradise Lost.’ And she 


230 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE TATTY. 

told me about Fanny Crosby, too, the blind hymn- 
writer, whose hymns have helped so many people 
and are sung all over the world. 

“I’ve made up my mind that if the doctor can’t 
save my sight I’ll do as they did. It’s like dropping 
the curtains on the outside darkness when night 
comes on, godmother says, and turning up the lights 
and stirring the fire, and making it so bright and 
cheerful and sweet inside that you forget how dark it 
is outdoors. 

“And maybe if I can do that, and think all the 
time about the beautiful things I have seen and read, 
I can make up stories some day as they did their 
poems and hymns. I will write fairy tales that the 
children will love to listen to and ask to hear, over 
and over again. I know I can do it, for the ones I’ve 
made for Davy he likes best of all. I’d never hope 
to write stories that grown people would be interested 
in, and love as they love Tusitala’s, but just to be the 
children’s ‘tale-teller,’ and to write stories that they 
would listen to long after I am dead and gone — why 
that would be worth living for, even if I never saw 
the light again. And godmother thinks I can do it.” 

“ I know you can,” assented Lloyd, warmly, “ and 
we’ll copy them for you, and send them away to be 
put into books.” 


A LONG NIGHT. 


231 


l 


“ Joyce,” asked Betty, “ would you mind reading 
that little newspaper clipping to the girls about the 
Road of the Loving Heart ? I want them to know 
about it, too.” 

She did not know that they had already heard it, 
listening outside her door with heavy hearts and 
troubled faces, and when Joyce had found it 
and again read it aloud, she told them the story 
of the memory road that she was trying to leave 
behind her. 

“It will be harder to do now that I am blind,” 
she said, at the last, “ for I can’t help being a care 
and a trouble to everybody, everywhere I go now. 
But godmother says people won’t mind that much if 
I’ll only be pleasant and cheerful about my misfor- 
tune, and not let it cast its shadow on other lives any 
more than I can help. I haven’t said anything about 
it yet to her, but if there is enough money in the 
bank that papa left to educate me with, I want to go 
to a school for the blind and learn to read those 
queer raised letters, and to do everything for myself. 
Then I’ll not be such a trouble to everybody.” 

“ But how can you be cheerful and pleasant, and 
go on that way for a whole lifetime ? ” asked Eu- 
genia, with a shiver. “ You may live to be an old, 
old woman.” 


232 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

“ Oh, Eugenia ! ” exclaimed Joyce, in a shocked 
undertone. “Don’t remind the poor little thing of 
of that.” 

“ I know,” answered Betty, her smile all gone now, 
and her lip trembling. “ Sometimes when I think of 
that, it’s so awful that I can hardly stand it. But it 
will be only a day at a time, and if I can manage to 
get through them one by one, and keep my courage 
up to the end, it will be all right afterward, you 
know, for there is no night there. The nurse read 
me that yesterday out of Revelation. That’s the 
only thing that comforts me sometimes.” ^ She re- 
peated it in a soft whisper, turning her face away : 
“ There’ll be no night there / ” 


CHAPTER XV. 


“THE ROAD OF THE LOVING HEART/’ 

Joyce sat with her elbows on her dressing-table 
and her chin in her hands, gazing thoughtfully into 
the mirror. She had just come from Betty’s room, 
and the child’s patient cheerfulness, in the face of 
the dark future that threatened her, had brought the 
tears to her eyes. 

“ Dear little Betty ! ” she said to her reflection in 
the mirror. “What a beautiful memory of her we 
will all carry away with us ! There isn’t a single 
thing I would want to forget about her. She will be 
leaving each one of us a Road of the Loving Heart 
to look back on. And it’s like the work of the 
old Samoan chiefs, too ! Built to last for ever. It 
frightens me to think that what I’ve done is going to 
be remembered for ever and ever and ever ; but that 
is what Mrs. Sherman said : ‘ The memories we dig 
into our souls will go with us into eternity .’ 

• “ If I should die right now, what a lot of things I 
would want people to forget about me ; especially 


233 


234 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

the family. I’ve been so'mean to Jack and so self- 
ish with Mary. I’m going to begin the minute I get 
back to the little brown house to start to make a 
memory road for everybody, that I need not be 
ashamed of when I lie a-dying.” 

Then she gave a shamefaced little glance at her 
reflection in the mirror. “No, that’s putting it off 
too long. That is one of my worst habits. I’ll begin 
this minute and write that letter to mamma that I 
have been putting off all week. And I’ll take time 
to make it interesting, and write all the little things 
that I know she wants to hear about. And I’ll not 
be so snappish with Eugenia, and make her feel that 
she was most to blame about our getting the measles. 
I’ve taken a mean sort of pleasure in doing it before. 
Poor thing, she seems to feel dreadfully bad about it, 
and there’s no use my adding anything to her dis- 
tress.” And Joyce, jumping up, took out her writing 
materials, and sat down at her desk. 

At the same moment the Little Colonel was hang- 
ing around the door waiting for Mrs. Sherman, who 
sat in the room until Betty fell asleep. There was 
a lingering tenderness in Lloyd’s kiss as she threw 
her arms around her mother’s neck, and, though no 
word was spoken, Mrs. Sherman knew that Lloyd 
had taken Betty’s little sermon to heart. 


“THE ROAD OF THE LOVING HEART . ” 235 

“ Where is Eugenia, dear ? ” she asked. 

“ She has gone to her room, I think.” 

“I want to have a little talk with her. She has 
seemed so miserable and unhappy, since all this 
happened. The poor child has nearly made herself 
ill worrying about it.” 

Across the hall Eugenia had thrown herself down 
on her bed, and was staring out of the windows. 
She saw nothing of the summer skies outside, or any 
of all that outdoor brightness. Her gaze was turned 
inward on herself. 

“ I wish I could begin at the beginning and do it 
all over, — all my life!” she thought. “ Somehow 
I’ve always thought it rather smart to say and do 
exactly as I pleased ; to be the ringleader in all the 
mischief and make the teachers dread me, and have 
the girls afraid of me. But Betty makes you look at 
things so differently. I’d give anything I’ve got to 
have people remember me as they will her. What 
must papa think of me ? I’m all he’s got, and he is 
so good to me ! Oh, it would have been better if 
I had never been born ! Every day I’ve lived I’ve 
left a whole road full of stones for somebody to jolt 
over. Poor old Eliot can’t think of me as anything 
else than an imp of selfishness, for I’m always mak- 
ing it hard for her, and she’s a * stranger in a strange 


236 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

land/ and I ought to have remembered that she has 
feelings as well as I have, even if she is a servant. 
And now Betty’s eyes — ” 

She turned over on the bed, face downward, and 
began to cry. It was just then that Mrs. Sherman 
tapped at the door. For almost an hour Lloyd could 
hear the low murmur of voices going on inside the 
room, and knew that Eugenia was hearing now what 
she had always most sorely needed, a sympathetic, 
motherly talk. If she could have had that loving 
advice, those straightforward words of warning, long 
ago, how much they might have done for the mother- 
less child. As it was, that hour opened Eugenia’s 
eyes to many things, and awakened a desire to grow 
more like the gentle woman beside her, *sweet and 
sincere, unselfish and helpful. 

Great was Mr. Forbes’s surprise one day, when he 
opened a letter from Eugenia in the dining-room at 
the Waldorf, to find that it covered eight pages, and 
was blistered in several places, as if she had dropped 
a tear or two as she wrote. Usually she had a favour 
to ask when she wrote, and scrawled only a page or 
two ; but this told the story of Betty’s blindness, her 
own part in the affair, and all that she had learned 
about the Road of the Loving Heart. The newspaper 
clipping that Betty had treasured was enclosed, that 


“ THE ROAD OF THE LOVING HEART” 23 7 

he might read for himself the story of Tusitala that 
had left such an impression on her. 

The letter touched him as nothing had done for 
years, and he read it a second time while he was 
going up to his office on the elevated. Then at 
lunch-time, while he waited in his club-room, for lunch 
to be served, he took it out and read it again. All 
that busy day between the demands that business 
made on him, and once even in the midst of dictat- 
ing to his typewriter, his thoughts kept turning to 
that far-away island in the Southern seas, where 
Tusitala’s road gleams white under the tropic sun. 
He had met Robert Louis Stevenson once, the tale- 
teller of Eugenia’s story, and he well understood the 
influence ©f that noble life over the old chiefs who 
called him “ brother.” 

The words that Eugenia had quoted in her letter 
rang in his ears all day, every way he turned : “ Fame 
dies and honours perish, but loving-kindness is immor- 
tal.” He seemed to hear them when a poor woman 
came into his office, asking for a position for her son. 
They stopped the curt refusal on his lips, and caused 
him to take half an hour of his precious time to help 
her. 

He heard them again when a case was reported to 
him of a man living in one of his tenement-houses, 


238 THE LITTLE CO LONE VS HOUSE PARTY. 

who could not pay his rent because he was too ill to 
work, and could not hope to recover in his present 
surroundings. The stifling heat of the crowded ten- 
ement was killing him. In his weakened condition 
he was slowly sinking under his burden of debt and 
worry, and the thought that his helpless family was 
almost starving and would be left uncared for when 
he died. 

Mr. Forbes turned away with an impatient frown 
from his collector’s report, but that voice from far 
Samoa seemed to speak again. It was Tusitala’s, 
and again he saw the road dug to last for ever, in the 
white light of the tropic skies. He sat with his head 
on his hand a moment, and then, slowly reaching for 
his check-book filled out a blank, signed it, and sealed 
it in an envelope. 

Pushing it toward his astonished collector, he said : 
“Here, Miller, take that down to Wiggins, and tell 
him I said to pick up himself and family, and go 
down to the seashore for a couple of weeks. It will 
put them all on their feet again to get out of that 
place into the salt air, and, wait a minute, Miller,” — 
as the collector moved off, — “ take him a receipt for 
two months’ rent.” 

Miller walked away, speechless with astonishment, 
but he had found his tongue by the time he got back. 


“ THE ROAD OF THE LOVING HEART.” 239 

He went into the private office, hat in hand, and 
waited patiently until Mr. Forbes looked up. 

“Well?” 

“ Wiggins says to tell you, sir, that he will write 
to you to-morrow, but if you’ll excuse me, sir, for 
meddling in what is none of my business, I’d like 
you to know before then what a little heaven on 
earth you have made in that tenement-house. Wig- 
gins was so weak he could hardly sit up, and he cried 
for pure joy, at the thought of getting away. He 
says he knows it will save his life. He kept wring- 
ing my hand, over and over, and saying, 4 It isn’t 
just the money and all that it will do for me in the 
way of unloading me of that debt and getting my 
strength back, but it’s the kindness of it, Miller, the 
heavenly kindness of it ! Doing all this for me as if 
he had been my brother ! ’ ” 

“Thank you, Miller,” said Mr. Forbes, waving him 
hastily aside and turning again to his letters. He 
seemed impatient, but there was a glow in his heart 
that made the world seem pleasanter all day. 

On his way home he stopped at a jeweller’s, and 
selected a little ring. It was only a simple twist of 
gold tied in a lover’s knot, but inside he had them 
engrave the word, “ Tusitala ,” and ordered it sent to 
the hotel that evening. 


240 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

Late that night it was brought up to his room, 
where he sat writing a letter to Eugenia. He had 
just finished the paragraph : “I am sending you by 
this mail a sort of talisman. Maybe the daily sight 
of it on your finger will be a helpful reminder of that 
noble life that shall never be forgotten, while the 
Road of the Loving Heart endures. It is so easy to 
forget to take time to be kind. I find it so in my 
daily rush of business. I shall carry your letter with 
me as a reminder. Tell your little friend Betty so. 
The ripple she started will circle farther than she 
ever dreamed.” 

“ How queer for me to be saying anything like 
that to Eugenia,” he thought. “ How much she 
must have changed to be able to write me the letter 
she did.” He opened the box and took out the little 
ring. As he turned it around on the tip of his 
finger, he remembered that it was almost time for her 
to be coming home. The house party would soon be 
at an end. 

“ Hardly worth while to send it to her, ”, he 
thought. “ She will be coming home so soon. 
When we are down at the seashore, I will give it 
to her.” 

The letter she had written him lay open on the 
table before him. That letter, blotted with penitent 


“ THE ROAD OF THE LOVING HEART” 24 1 

tears, had brought a new tenderness into his heart 
for her. It had revealed a different Eugenia from 
the one he had been accustomed to thinking of as his 
little daughter. Somehow she seemed nearer and 
dearer than she had ever done before, and he wanted 
to take her in his arms and tell her so. The next 
instant the thought flashed across his mind, “ Well, 
why not ? This is the time I have arranged to take 
my vacation, and there is nothing to hinder my 
going down to Kentucky after her. Jack Sherman 
is always urging me to visit Locust, and I’ll give the 
child a surprise. She dislikes to travel with only 
Eliot.” 

Eugenia knew nothing of the telegram her Cousin 
Elizabeth received next morning, so several days 
later she could hardly believe her eyes, when she 
saw her father spring out of the carriage in front of 
the house, and come bounding up the steps, between 
the white pillars of the vine-covered porch. Tall, 
handsome, smiling, he came toward her, his arms 
outstretched, and, after one amazed glance, she ran 
into them, crying, “ Oh, papa ! papa ! I’m so glad ! ” 

“ I couldn’t do without my little girl any longer,” 
he said. “I had to come for her.” 

Mrs. Sherman came out just then with the warm- 
est of welcomes, and Eugenia rushed up-stairs for 


242 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

a moment, to tell Betty about her surprise and 
to hurry Joyce and Lloyd down to greet her 
father. 

“ I am going to begin all over again now,” she 
said to herself, as she went up the stairs. “ I’ll be 
as good, and sweet to him as he deserves. I’ll let 
him see how proud I am of him, too. It’s queer, 
but somehow I really love him better since I have 
thought so much about Betty’s Memory roads. Well, 
I shall certainly try my best from now on to leave a 
happy one behind for him.” 

He gave her the ring that night, the little golden 
lover’s knot with the name of Tusitala engraved in- 
side, to remind her always of the Road of the Loving 
Heart, that she might leave in the world after her. 
With her head on his shoulder and his arm around 
her, they talked long, and freely together, as they 
had never done before. 

Once he looked at her with a quizzical little smile. 
“I never realised until to-night,” he said, “how old 
you are, or how companionable you can be. But 
we’ll always be good chums after this, won’t 
we ? ” 

“Yes,” she answered, giving his ear a playful 
tweak, and mischievously imitating his tone and 
manner. “ And I never realised until v to-night how 


“ THE ROAD OF THE LOVING HEART . 11 243 

young you are, or how companionable you can be. 
I believe that if you’d been at this house party from 
the beginning, you’d have been playing with us by 
this time, like Bobby and the other boys. 

“ I must show this ring to the girls,” she said, 
presently, when they heard Mrs. Sherman coming 
back. Then she hesitated, her eyes sparkling with 
the pleasure of a sudden thought. 

“ Oh, papa, I’d like to give Lloyd and Joyce and 
Betty each a ring like mine, to help them remember, 
you know, and as a souvenir of the house party. 
Don’t you think that would be nice ? I have scarcely 
touched my allowance this month. Couldn’t we go 
to the city to-morrow and get them ? ” 

“Yes, I think so,” answered her father. “We’ll 
ask Cousin Elizabeth about the trains.” 

Early next morning Mr. Forbes and Eugenia went 
into the city on their little excursion, and scarcely 
had they gone when a telegram arrived from Mr. 
Sherman, saying he would be home on the noon 
train. The Little Colonel went dashing around the 
house, from one room to another, calling out the 
news in the greatest excitement. 

“ Have you heard it ? Papa Jack’s cornin’ ! Grand- 
fathah is goin’ to stay several weeks longah, but 
Papa Jack’s cornin’ on the noon train to-day ! ” 


244 THE ^TTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

Some one else came on that noon train, some one 
whom Doctor Fuller met in his buggy and took 
immediately up to Locust. It was the oculist who 
had been there before. Lloyd was so excited over 
her father’s arrival that she scarcely noticed they were 
in the house, and she never knew when they gravely 
made their examination of Betty’s eyes and as gravely 
went away again. 

But late that afternoon, Eugenia and her father, 
driving up from the station, were surprised to see 
a cloud of dust whirling rapidly down the road to- 
ward them. As they came nearer they saw that 
Tarbaby was in the centre of it, and on his bare back 
perched the Little Colonel, the hot June sun beating 
down on her bare head and red face. As she came 
within calling distance, she waved her arms frantic- 
ally to stop the carriage, and shrieked out, at the top 
of her voice : “ Papa Jack’s home, and, oh, Eugenia, 
Betty can see ! ” 

The carriage stopped, and Eugenia leaned out 
eagerly. 

“ I couldn’t wait for you to get home,” cried the 
Little Colonel. “As soon as I heard the train 
whistle I jumped on Tarbaby without a saddle or 
anything, and just toah down heah to tell you. Of 
co’se she can’t use her eyes much fo’ a long time, 


* THE ROAD OF THE LOVING HEART. ” 245 

and will have to weah a shade fo’ weeks, but when 
they tested her eyes she saw ! And she isn’t goin’ 
to be blind ! ” 

Eugenia gave a great, deep sigh of thankfulness, 
and leaned limply back in the carriage. “ Oh, papa,” 
she exclaimed, “you can’t imagine what a relief it is 
to hear that ! I felt so much to blame, that now 
it seems as if a great weight had been lifted off 
from me.” 

They were having a jubilee in Betty’s room when 
Eugenia and her father reached the house. Mrs. 
Sherman told them so, from the head of the stairs 
and called them to come on up and join in it. 

It was a very quiet jubilee. The doctor had in- 
sisted on that ; but the unspoken joy of the little face 
on the pillow made happiness in every heart. It was 
the first time that Mr. Forbes had seen Betty. She 
was lying with her brown curls tossed back on the 
pillows, her eyes still bandaged ; but the smile on the 
little mouth was one of the sweetest, gladdest things 
he had ever seen. Involuntarily he stooped and 
kissed her softly on the forehead. 

“ Who is it ? ” asked Betty, reaching out a won- 
dering little hand, “ Eugenia’s father ? ” 

“ Lloyd calls me Cousin Carl,” answered Mr. 
Forbes, taking the groping fingers in his, “and I 


246 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

think that the little Betty that everybody is so fond 
of might call me that, too.” 

“ I’ll be glad to — Cousin Carl,” said the child, 
bashfully, and that was the beginning of a warm 
and steadfast friendship. 

Eugenia waited until later, when her father and 
Mrs. Sherman had left the room, before she opened 
her packages. 

“ Hold fast all I give you ! ” she exclam ed, gaily, 
tossing a tiny white box into Joyce’s lap and another 
into Lloyd’s. But the third one she opened, and, tak- 
ing out the ring it held, slipped it on Betty’s, finger. 

“They are all like the one papa gave me,” she 
said, “and have Tusitala’s name inside to help me 
remember the Memory roads that Betty told us 
about.” 

“ It will remind me of more than that,” said Betty 
gratefully, when she and the girls had expressed 
their thanks in a chorus of delighted exclamations. 
“ It will remind me of the happiest day in my life. 
This is the first ring I ever owned,” she added, 
turning it proudly on her finger. “ I wish I could 
see it.” Then, with a gladness in her voice that 
thrilled her listeners, — “But I shall see it some 
day ! Oh, girls, you couldn’t know, you couldn’t 
possibly imagine how much that means to me, 


“ THE ROAD OF THE LOVING HEART . ”> 247 

unless you’d been shut up as I have in this awful 
darkness.” 

There was silence for a moment, and then Eugenia 
stooped over and gave her a quick, impulsive kiss. 
“Well, your blindness did some good, Betty,” she 
said, speaking hurriedly and with very red cheeks. 
“ It made me see how hateful and selfish I’ve always 
been, and I’m never going to be so mean again to 
anybody as I was to you. I’m trying to dig a road 
like Tusitala’s and I never would have thought of it, 
if it hadn’t been for you.” 

With that she turned hastily, and, running across 
the hall to her own room, shut the door behind her 
with a bang. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


A FEAST OF LANTERNS. 

The first week of July had come to an end, and 
with it came the end of the house party. 

“ Oh, deah,” croaked the Little Colonel like a dis- 
mal raven, as she waited at the head of the stairs 
for the girls to finish dressing. “This is the la-st 
mawnin’ we’ll all go racin’ down to breakfast to- 
gethah ! I’m glad that Betty isn’t goin’ away for 
a while longah. If you all had to leave at the 
same time, it would be so lonesome that I couldn’t 
stand it.” 

“I am glad, too,” said Betty, groping her way 
slowly out of her room with a green shade over her 
eyes. Her long night was nearly over now, although 
it would be several months before she would be 
allowed to read. Her godmother had written to 
Mrs. Appleton, saying that she wanted to keep 
Betty with her until her eyes were stronger, and 
the child had clapped her hands with delight when 
she received permission to stay, never dreaming how 
248 


A FEAST OF LANTERNS. 249 

long it would be before she ever saw the Cuckoo’s 
Nest again. 

“This is the la-st time we’ll ever ride together,” 
sighed Joyce, as she mounted Calico after breakfast. 
“ Oh, it has been such fun, Lloyd, and I’ve enjoyed 
this little clown pony more than I can ever tell. 
He is the dearest, ugliest little beast that ever wore 
a halter, and I’ll never forget him as long as I live.” 

“ And this is the last time we can go galloping out 
of this gate together, and see the boys coming up the 
road to meet us,” cried Eugenia. “ There they are, 
all three of them. Oh, they haven’t heard the news 
yet ! Vm going to dash on ahead and tell them.” 

Eugenia’s news was that she was going abroad 
with her father in the fall. It had all been arranged 
since he came to Locust. Finding that business 
required one of the members of his firm to spend a 
month in England, he telegraphed back to the office 
that he would go. 

“ I don’t know which is the most excited over the 
prospect, myself, or my maid,” said Eugenia to the 
boys. “ Poor old Eliot is simply wild with delight 
at the thought of seeing her home and family again, 
and I am nearly as much upset as she is. We’re to 
be gone five or six months. Papa says that while 
we are over there we might as well go the rounds, 


250 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

so maybe we’ll spend Christmas in France, in the same 
place that Joyce did.” 

“ What time do you leave Locust to-night ? ” asked 
Malcolm. 

“On the ten o’clock train, I think. Joyce is going 
with us, part of the way, as papa has to make a trip 
to St. Louis before we go back to New York.” 

“And which way are you all going now?” asked 
Keith. The others had joined them, and the seven 
ponies were standing in a ring in the middle of the 
road, their noses almost touching. 

“We’re going down to your house,” answerd 
Joyce, “to bid your Grandmother MacIntyre and 
Miss Allison good-bye. They have been so good to 
us all the time we have been here. Your Aunt Alli- 
son has done so much to entertain us, and as for 
your grandmother, I couldn’t begin to tell you how 
she cheered us up when we had the measles. There 
was something from her every day, fruit and flowers 
and wine jellies and messages. One of my sweetest 
memories of Kentucky will be of your beautiful 
grandmother.” 

Instantly both the boys lifted their hats in acknowl- 
edgment, but Keith exclaimed in boyish impatience, 
“ Oh, pshaw ! I thought we were all going over to the 
mill this morning. The last time, you know. There’s 


A FEAST OF LANTERNS. 25 I 

no need of your going down to bid them good-bye 
when we’ll see you at — ” 

But Lloyd stopped him with a finger on her lip 
and a threatening shake of her head. “ Come on ! ” 
she cried, starting Tarbaby down the road at full 
gallop. “We can’t stand heah in the road all 
day.” 

Keith dashed after her, laying a detaining hand on 
her bridle when he reached her side. “ What’s the 
matter, Miss Savage ? ” he asked. “ What do you 
mean, by shaking your head at me in that way ? ” 

“ Can’t you keep a secret ? ” she demanded, crossly. 
“You know well enough we want to surprise the 
girls to-night.” 

“ Oh, I forgot ! ” he exclaimed, clapping a hand 
over his mouth. 

“ They are not to know a thing about it until time 
to light the lanterns,” she said, severely. “And I 
think it would be very rude indeed for them not to 
make a good-bye call at yo’ house this mawnin’, even 
if you all are cornin’ up to-night.” 

“ Oh, I say, Lloyd, leave a little piece of me, please 
ma’am,” he begged, in a meek voice. “At least 
enough to help wind up the house party, to-night. 
Say you’ll forgive me!” he insisted, clasping his 
hands together and looking at her cross-eyed, with 


252 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

such a comical expression that she could not help 
laughing. 

The last time ! It’s the last time ! They said it 
as they stopped once more for the mail at the little 
post-office ; as they turned regretfully homeward ; as 
they went down the long avenue in the shade of the 
friendly old locusts. They said it again when they 
wandered four abreast, and arm in arm about the 
place, for a farewell glance at every nook and corner, 
where they had romped and played in the five weeks 
just gone. Even when the words were not wailed 
out disconsolately by one of them and echoed by 
the others, the thought that each thing they were 
doing was for the last time, went with them like a 
mournful undercurrent. 

“ Did you ever have a day fly by as fast as this 
one?” asked Joyce that afternoon, looking up from 
the trunk that Mom Beck was helping her to pack. 
“ Here it is nearly six o’clock, and I haven’t been 
down to the mulberry-tree. I wanted one more 
swing on the grape-vine swing before I dressed for 
dinner. It’s like flying to go sailing through the 'W, 
across the ravine, on that grape-vine that covers 
the mulberry-tree.” 

“There won’t be time now,” said the Little 
Colonel, casting an anxious look toward the front 


A FEAST OF LANTERNS. 253 

windows. If the girls had not been so busily occu- 
pied, they might Lave noticed how she had been 
manoeuvring for some time to keep them away from 
the front windows. She even took them down the 
back stairs when they were ready for dinner, with 
the excuse that she wanted them to see the hamper 
in which Joyce’s puppy was to travel. Eugenia’s 
Bob was to be left at Locust until after she had 
made her trip abroad. 

Joyce had a fresh blue satin ribbon packed away 
in her satchel to tie around her Bob’s neck just 
before reaching home. “ Oh, girls ! ” she ex- 
claimed, “ don’t you know that those children are 
going to be delighted when this fat little dumpling 
comes rolling out of the hamper? They will all 
grab for him at once, and Mary will be so tickled she 
will squeal. She always does when s&e is excited, 
and it is so funny. I wish I could hear her do it 
this blessed minute. Somehow I can hardly wait 
to see them all now, although I don’t want to leave 
Locust one bit. I have had such a good time ! ” 

Mom Beck came out just then to tell them that 
dinner was waiting, and Lloyd hurried them through 
the back hall again, although she herself ran to the 
front door and looked out, before she took her seat 
at the table. It was a merry meal, for Papa Jack 


254 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY. 

told his best stories, and Cousin Carl, as they all called 
Mr. Forbes now, recalled his funniest jokes to make 
the children forget how near they had come to the 
parting hour. And when the dessert was brought 
on they sang a duet they had learned when school- 
boys together, at which every one laughed until the 
tears stood in their eyes. 

While they lingered at the table, Alec and Walker 
and Mom Beck, and all the servants on the place 
who could lend a hand, were turning the lawn into 
fairy-land. They had been busy for several hours 
putting up strings of lanterns, and now they were 
lighting them, row after row. Big lanterns, and 
little lanterns, round ones and square, of every 
size, colour, and shape, lit up the darkness of 
the summer night. Huge red dragons swung be- 
tween the white, vine-covered pillars of the porch. 
Luminous fish and beasts and birds, hanging from 
the shrubs and trees on the lawn, set every bough 
a-twinkle, while all through the grass and all through 
the flower beds the flashing of hundreds of tiny fairy 
lamps made it seem as if the glow-worms were 
holding carnival. 

There were tents pitched on the lawn and tables 
set out here and there, and every tent was brilliant 
with festoons of light and every table had a canopy 




\ 



“‘let’s all sit down on the steps.’” 







. 





































































































* 



















A FEAST OF LANTERNS. 


255 


fringed with flaming balls of ruby and emerald and 
amber. But the most beautiful part of the whole 
dazzling scene was the old locust avenue, strung 
from top to bottom with lights. The trees seemed 
suddenly to have burst into bloom with stars, when 
all down that long arch, from entrance gate to 
mansion, shone the soft glow of a myriad welcoming 
lanterns. 

“ Let’s all sit down on the steps and enjoy it before 
the people begin to come,” said the Little Colonel, 
after the first burst of surprise and enthusiastic 
admiration was over. 

i “ Everybody in the Valley will be heah in a little 
bit to say good-bye to you all, and we told ’em to 
come early, because your train leaves so soon.” 

Even as she spoke there was a sound of wheels 
turning in at the gate, and the band in the honey- 
suckle ’arbour began tuning their violins. It was not 
long before the place was gay with many voices, and 
people were streaming back and forth over the lawn 
and porches. Grown people as well as children were 
there. All who had been at the pillow-case party ; 
all who had entertained the girls in any way, and all 
who had been friends of Betty’s mother and Joyce’s 
in their girlhood. 

After awhile, when the guests were being served 


256 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

with refreshments, under the lantern-hung canopies on 
the lawn, Mr. Forbes looked around for Betty. She 
was nowhere to be found at first, but presently he 
stumbled over her in a dark corner of the porch, with 
her shade pulled over her eyes. 

“It’s too bad you can’t enjoy it like the rest of us,” 
he said, sympathetically. 

“ I am enjoying it with all my heart, Cousin Carl,” 
protested Betty. “I have raised my shade half a 
dozen times and taken a quick glance around, and 
the music is so sweet, and everybody comes up and 
says nice things to me. I would be perfectly happy 
if I didn’t keep thinking that this is the last of our 
good times together, and in a little while I shall have 
to say good-bye to Eugenia and Joyce. You know I 
never knew any girls before,” she added, confi- 
dentially, “and you can’t imagine how much I have 
enjoyed them.” 

“ Come, walk down to the gate with me,” said Mr. 
Forbes, presently ; “ I have something to tell you.” 
She lifted her shade an instant as they started down 
the long arch of light, and gave one quick glance 
down the entire way. “ Isn’t it glorious ! ” she ex- 
claimed. “ It looks as if it might be the road to the 
City of the Shining Ones ! ” 

Then with a sigh she dropped her shade, and, slip- 


A FEAST OF LANTERNS. 257 

ping her hand into his, let him lead her, as she walked 
along with closed eyes. 

“You are an appreciative little puss,” he said, 
smiling. 

As they walked on under the glowing arch, hand 
in hand, he told her that he was coming back for her 
in the fall ; that Eugenia wanted her to go abroad 
with them, and that he thought such an arrangement 
would be good for both the girls. Good for Eugenia, 
because otherwise she would often be left for days at 
a time with only Eliot for a companion, when he was 
away on business. Good for Betty, since she could 
be enjoying the advantages of travel at a time whfcn 
she could not be using her eyes to study. 

“You shall see Abbotsford,” he said, “and Burns’s 
country, and go to Shakespeare’s home. And you 
shall coach among the English lakes where Words- 
worth learned to write. Then there is Rome, on her 
seven hills, you know, and the canals of Venice and 
the Dutch windmills and the Black Forest. You 
shall hear the legends of all the historic rivers you 
cross and mountains you climb, and listen to the 
music of the Norwegian waterfalls. Don’t you think 
it will help you to be a better tale-teller for the chil- 
dren, some day, my little ‘Tusitala? ’ 

“You see your godmother has been telling me 


258 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY. 

some of your secrets and showing me some of your 
poems and stories. What do you say, Betty ? Will 
you go ? ” 

“Will I go?” cried Betty, joyfully, holding his 
hand tight in both her own and pressing it lovingly to 
her cheek. “Oh, Cousin Carl! You might as well 
ask me if I would go to heaven if a big strong angel 
had come down on purpose to carry me up ! Oh, 
why is everybody so good to me? I can’t under- 
stand it.” 

They had reached the gate, and were turning to 
walk back to the house. Mr. Forbes laid his hand 
on the brown curly head with a fatherly touch. 

“I’ll tell you some day,” he said, “when there is 
more time. It is all because of that road you dis- 
covered, little one, that Road of the Loving Heart. 
I don’t wear a ring as Eugenia does, to remind me 
of it, but I’ve been carrying the inspiration of it in 
my memory, ever since she wrote me all that you 
had taught her about it.” 

They walked slowly back to the house together 
under the locusts that arched their star-blossomed 
boughs above them. The band was playing softly, 
and Betty, uplifted by the music, the lights, and the 
good fortune in store for her, could hardly believe 
that her feet were touching the earth. She seemed 


A FEAST OF LANTERNS. 


259 


to be floating along in some sort of dreamland. The 
old feeling swept over her that always came with the 
music of the harp. It was as if she were away off 
from everything, her head among the stars, and 
strange, beautiful thoughts that she had no words 
for danced on ahead like shining will-o’-the-wisps. 

Joyce was the first to share her good fortune, and 
while she was telling it Eugenia came up with another 
joyful announcement. 

“We are going to Tours,” she cried, “and across 
the Loire to St. Symphorien, where Joyce stayed 
all winter. And we’ll see the Gate of the Giant 
Scissors, and little Jules who lives there.” 

“I am so glad,” said Joyce. “You must get 
Madame Greville to show you everything ; the kiosk 
in the old garden where we had our Thanksgiving 
barbecue ; the coach-house where we shut up the 
goats that day when they chewed the cushions of 
the pony-cart to pieces ; and the room where we 
had the Christmas tree, and the laurel hedges in 
bloom — oh, I’m sc glad you’re going to see them 
all.” 

« What’s that ? ” asked the Little Colonel, coming 
up behind them ; and then Betty told her, too. 

“ Only think ! Lloyd Sherman,” she added, giving 
her a rapturous hug, “ if it hadn’t been for you it never 


260 the little coloneus house party. 

would have happened. It’s all because you had this 
delightful house party and invited me to come.” 

“ Here comes Mrs. MacIntyre,” interrupted Joyce, 
in a low tone. “ Did you ever see anything so fine 
and soft and fluffy as that beautiful white hair of 
hers ? It looks like a crimped snow-drift. I wouldn’t 
mind being a grandmother to-morrow if I could look 
like that.” 

She came up smiling, and beckoned the girls to 
follow her. “ I want to show you something comical,” 
she said. “ I just discovered it.” She led the way 
to the end of the porch, and there, standing in a row, 
were six little darkies, so black that their faces scarcely 
showed against the black background of the night. 
Only their rolling white eyeballs and gleaming teeth 
could be seen distinctly. 

“ They are Allison’s protdgds,” she said. “ Sylvia 
Gibbs's children, you know. They are always on the 
outskirts of all the festivities when they think they 
can pick up any crumbs in the way of refreshments. 
But they’ll have some good excuse to giye for 
coming, you may be sure.” 

“ Oh, they are the children who acted the charades 
at the old mill picnic,” said Eugenia, drawing nearer. 

“Get them to talk if you can, Mrs. MacIntyre. 
Please do.” 


A FEAST OF LANTERNS. 26 1 

Except for a broader grin in token that they heard 
Mrs. MacIntyre’s questions, they were as unrespon- 
sive as six little black kittens, and Keith, coming up 
just then, was sent to find Miss Allison. “They 
always talk for auntie,” he said. “She is over in 
one of the tents, and I’ll go get her.” 

Keith was right. Miss Allison proved the key 
that unlocked every little red tongue, and they 
answered her questions glibly. 

“ We don brought sumpin to Miss ’Genia,” stam- 
mered Tildy, shyly. “ M’haley, she got a chicken in 
dis yere box wot she gwine to give to Miss ’Genia to 
take away wid her on de kyars.” 

“ A chicken ! ” repeated Miss Allison, laughing. 
“What did M’haley bring Miss Eugenia a chicken 
for?” 

“’Cause Miss ’Genia, she give M’haley her hat wid 
roses on it ovah to the ole mill picnic, when it fell in 
de spring an’ got wet, and we brought her a chicken 
to take away on de kyars fo’ a pet.” 

Arnold bandbox tied with brown twine was promptly 
hoisted up from the outer darkness into the light of 
the red dragon lanterns on the porch. The sides had 
been pricked with a nail to admit air* and the lid was 
cut in slits. Through these slits they could discover 
a half-grown chicken, cowering sleepily on the bottom 


262 THE LITTLE COLONELS HOUSE PARTY . 

of the box. It was a mottled brown one, with its wing 
feathers growing awkwardly in the wrong direction. 

“ Imagine me carrying this into the Waldorf,” 
laughed Eugenia, when she had expressed her 
thanks, and Mom Beck had been called to take the 
children away and give them cake and cream in 
the background. 

“But you’ll have to take it,” said Miss Allison, 
“at least to the station, for you may be sure they’ll 
be on hand to see you start, and their feelings would 
be sadly hurt if you didn’t take it, at any rate out of 
their sight.” 

It was time for the leave-takings to begin. Joyce 
and Eugenia put on their hats, and Eliot hurried out 
with the satchels as the carriage drove up. At the 
last moment Mom Beck waylaid them in the hall 
with two huge bundles. 

“I couldn’t do nothin’ else fo’ you chillun,” she 
said, as she offered them. “Ole Becky ain’t got 
much to give but her blessin’, but I can cook yit, 
and I done made you a big spice cake apiece, and 
icened it with icin’ an inch thick.” 

The girls thanked her till her black face beamed, 
but they looked at each other ruefully when they 
were in the carriage. 

“How I am ever to reach New York with a big 


A FEAST OF LANTERNS. 


263 


frosted cake in my arms is more than I know,” said 
Eugenia. “ I’ll have to cut it up and pass it around 
on the train.” 

“But think of me,” groaned Joyce. “I have my 
cake and Bob, too, and nobody, to carry my satchel 
and umbrella.” 

The kissing and hand-shaking began, and a cross- 
fire of good-byes. “Give my love to your mother, 
Joyce.” “Write to me first thing, Eugenia.” “Good- 
bye, Betty.” “Good-bye, Lloyd.” “Keith and I 
won’t make our adieux now ; we’ll follow you to the 
station and see you off on the train.” “ Good-bye ! 
Good-bye, everybody ! ” 

At last the carriage started on, but was brought 
to a halt by a shrill call from Rob. They looked 
back to see him standing on the porch beside the 
Little Colonel, who was excitedly waving a bunch of 
flowers which she had been carrying all evening. 
The light from the red lantern above her threw a 
rosy glow over the graceful little figure, the soft 
light hair, and smiling, upturned face. That is the 
picture they carried away with them. 

« Wait ! ” she cried, a smile dimpling her cheeks, 
and shining with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. 
“Wait! You’ve forgotten something! Eugenia’s 
chicken ! ” 


264 the little colonel: s house party. 

Little Jim Gibbs came running after them with it, 
and Mr. Forbes lifted it up beside the hamper that 
held Joyce’s puppy. 

“ Oh, I’ve sat on my cake and mashed it,” moaned 
Joyce, as she moved over to make a place for the 
dilapidated old bandbox. “How do you suppose 
we’re ever going to get home with such a mixture of 
frosted cakes and puppies and chickens, and all the 
keepsakes that those boys piled on to us at the 
last moment.” 

It was amid much laughter that the carriage 
moved on again. Down the long avenue they went, 
under that glowing arch, spangled as if with stars, 
and every friendly old locust held up all its twinkling 
lanterns to light them on their way. Half-way down 
the path the band began to play “ My Old Kentucky 
Home,” and, leaning far out of the carriage, Eugenia 
and Joyce looked back once more to wave a loving 
good-bye to the Little Colonel. 


THE END. 


L. C. Page & Company’s 

Gift Book Series 


FOR 

Boys and Girls 

» 

Each one volume, tall I2mo, cloth, Illustrated, $1*00 

9 

The Little Coloners House Party. By Annie Fellows- 

Johnston. 

Author of “ Little Colonel,” etc. Illustrated by E. B. Barry. 

Mrs. Johnston has endeared herself to the children by her 
charming little books published in the Cosy Corner 
Series. Accordingly, a longer story by her will be 
eagerly welcomed by the little ones who have so much 
enjoyed each story from her pen. 

Chums. By Maria Louise Pool. 

Author of “ Little Bermuda,” etc. Illustrated by L. J. 
Bridgman. 

“ Chums ” is a girls’ book, about girls and for girls. It re- 
lates the adventures, in school, and during vacation, of 
two friends. 

Three Little Crackers. From Down in Dixie. By Will 
Allen Dromgoole. 

Author of “ The Farrier’s Dog.” A fascinating story for 
boys and girls, of the adventures of a family of Alabama 
children who move to Florida and grow up in the South. 

Miss Gray's Girls? or, Summer Days in the Scottish 
Highlands. By Jeannette A. Grant. 

A delightfully told story of a summer trip through Scot- 
land, somewhat out of the beaten track. A teacher, 
starting at Glasgow, takes a lively party of girls, her 
pupils, through the Trossachs to Oban, through the 
Caledonian Canal to Inverness, and as far north as 
Brora. 


Gift Book Series for Boys and Girls — Continutd. 

Three Children of Galilee: A Life of Christ for the 
Young. By John Gordon. 

There has long been a need for a Life of Christ for the 
young, and this book has been written in answer to this 
demand. That it will meet with great favor is beyond 
question, for parents have recognized that their boys and 
girls want something more than a Bible story, a dry 
statement of facts, and that, in order to hold the atten- 
tion of the youthful readers, a book on this subject 
should have life and movement as well as scrupulous 
accuracy and religious sentiment. 

Little Bermuda. By Maria Louise Pool. 

Author of “Dally,” “A Redbridge Neighborhood,” “ In a 
Dike Shanty,” “ Friendship and Folly,” etc. 

The adventures of “ Little Bermuda ” from her home in 
the tropics to a fashionable American boarding-school. 
The resulting conflict between the two elements in her 
nature, the one inherited from her New England ances- 
try, and the other developed by her West Indian sur- 
roundings, gave Miss Pool unusual opportunity for 
creating an original and fascinating heroine. 

The Wild Ruthvens : A Home Story. By Curtis York. 

A story illustrating the mistakes, failures, and successes of 
a family of unruly but warm-hearted boys and girls. 
They are ultimately softened and civilized by the influ- 
ence of an invalid cousin, Dick Trevanion, who comes to 
live with them. 

The Adventures of a Siberian Cub. Translated from the 
Russian of Slibitski by Leon Golschmann. 

This is indeed a book which will be hailed with delight, es- 
pecially by children who love to read about animals. 
The interesting and pathetic adventures of the orphan- 
bear, Mishook, will appeal to old. and young in much the 
same way as have “ Black Beauty” and “Beautiful Joe.” 

Timothy Dole. By Juniata Salsbury. 

The youthful hero, and a genuine hero he proves to be, 
starts from home, loses his way, meets with startling ad- 
ventures, finds friends, kind and many, and grows to be a 
manly man. It is a wholesome and vigorous book, that 
boys and girls, and parents as well, will read and enjoy. 


Gift Book Series for Boys and Girls — Continued. 

King Pippin : A Story froR Children. By Mrs. Gerard 
Ford. 

Author of “ Pixie.” 

One of the most charming books for young folks which 
has been issued^for some time. The hero is a lovable 
little fellow, whose frank and winning ways disarm even 
the crustiest of grandmothers, and win for him the affec- 
tion of all manner of unlikely people. 

Feats on the Fiord: A Tale of Norwegian Life. By 
Harriet Martineau. 

This admirable book, read and enjoyed by so many young 
people, deserves to be brought to the attention of parents 
in search of wholesome reading for their children to-day. 
It is something more than a juvenile book, being really 
one of the most instructive books about Norway and 
Norwegian life and manners ever written. 

Songs and Rhymes for the Little Ones. Compiled by Mary 
Whitney Morrison (Jenny Wallis). 

New edition, with an introduction by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney. 

No better description of this admirable book can be given 
than Mrs. Whitney’s happy introduction : 

“One might almost as well offer June roses with the as- 
surance of their sweetness, as to present this lovely little 
gathering of verse, which announces itself, like them, by 

\its own deliciousness. Yet, as Mrs. Morrison’s charming 
volume has long been a delight to me, I am only too 
happy to declare that it is to me — and to two families 
of my grandchildren — the most bewitching book of 
songs for little people that we have ever known.” 

The Young Pearl Divers: A Story of Australian Ad- 
venture by Land and by Sea. By Lieut. H. 
Phelps Whitmarsh. 

This is a splendid story for boys, by an author who writes 
in vigorous and interesting language, of scenes and ad- 
ventures with which he is personally acquainted. 

The 'Woodranger. By G. Waldo Browne. 

The first of a series of five volumes entitled “ The Wood- 
ranger Tales.” 

Although based strictly on historical facts the book is an 
interesting and exciting tale of adventure, which will 
delight all boys, and be by no means unwelcome to their 
elders. 


Gift Book Scries for Boys and Girls — Continued. 

The Young Gunbearer. By G. Waldo Browne. 

This is the second volume of “The Woodranger Tales.” 
The new story, while complete in itself, continues the 
fortunes and adventures of “ The Woodranger’s ” young 
companions. 

A Bad Penny. By John T. Wheelright. 

A dashing story of the New England of 1812. In the 
climax of the story the scene is laid during the well- 
known sea-fight between the Chesapeake and Shannon , 
and the contest is vividly portrayed. 

The Fairy Folk of Blue Hill: A Story of Folk-lore. 
By Lily F. Wesselhoeft. 

A new volume by Mrs. Wesselhoeft, well known as one of 
our best miters for the young, and who has made a host 
of friends among the young people who have read her 
delightful books. This book ought to interest and ap- 
peal to every child who has read her earlier works. 


Selections from 
L. C. Page & Company’s 
Books for Young People 

Old Father Gander; or, The Better-Half of Mother 
Goose. Rhymes, Chimes, and Jingles scratched from 
his own goose-quill for American Goslings. Illustrated 
with impossible Geese, hatched and raised by Walter 
Scott Howard. 

i vol., oblong quarto, cloth decorative . . . $ 2.00 

The illustrations are so striking and fascinating that the 
book will appeal to the young people aside from the fact 
even of the charm and humor of the songs and rhymes. 
There are thirty-two full-page plates, of which many are 
in color. The color illustrations are a distinct and suc- 
cessful departure from the old-fashioned lithographic 
work hitherto invariably used for children’s books. 

The Crock of Gold: A New Book of Fairy Tales. 
By S. Baring Gould. 

Author of “ Mehalah,” “ Old Country Life,” “ Old English 
Fairy Tales,” etc. With twenty-five full-page illustrations 
by F. D. Bedford. 

1 vol., tall i2mo, cloth decorative, gilt top . . $1.50 

This volume will prove a source of delight to the children 
of two continents, answering their always increasing de- 
mand for “ more fairy stories.” 

Shireen and Her Friends: The Autobiography of a 
Persian Cat. By Gordon Stables. 

Illustrated by Harrison Weir. 

1 vol., large i2mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.25 

A more charming book about animals Dr. Stables himself 
has not written. It is similar in character to “ Black 
Beauty,” “ Beautiful Joe,” and other books which teach 
us to love and protect the dumb animals. 


Books for Young People — Continued. 

Bully, Fag, and Hero. By Charles J. Mansford. 

With six full-page illustrations by S. H. Vedder. 
i vol., large i2mo, cloth decorative, gilt top . . $1.50 

An interesting story of schoolboy life and adventure in 
school and during the holidays. 

The Adventures of a Boy Reporter in the Philippines. 
By Harry Steele Morrison. 

Author of “ A Yankee Boy’s Success.” 

1 vol., large 1 2mo, cloth, illustrated . . . $1.25 

A true story of the courage and enterprise of an American 
lad. It is a splendid boys’ book, filled with healthy inter- 
est, and will tend to stimulate and encourage the proper 
ambition of the young reader. 

Tales Told in the Zoo. By F. C. Gould. 

With many illustrations from original drawings. 

1 vol., large quarto $2.00 

A new book for young people on entirely original lines. 
The tales are supposed to be told by an old adjutant stork 
in the Zoological Gardens to the assembled birds located 
there, and they deal with legendary and folk-lore stories 
of the origins of various creatures, mostly birds, and 
their characteristics. 

Philip: The Story of a Boy Violinist. By T. W. O. 

1 vol., i2mo, cloth #1.00 

The life-story of a boy, reared among surroundings singular 
enough to awaken interest at the start, is described by 
the present author as it could be described only by one 
thoroughly familiar with the scene. The reader is carried 
from the cottages of the humblest coal-miners into the 
realms of music and art ; and the finale of this charming 
tale is a masterpiece of pathetic interest. 

Black Beauty: The Autobiography of a Horse. By 
Anna Sewell. New Illustrated Edition. 

With twenty-five full-page drawings by Winifred Austin. 

1 vol., large i2mo, cloth decorative, gilt top . . $1.25 

There have been many editions of this classic, but we con- 
fidently offer this one as the most appropriate and hand- 
some yet produced. The illustrations are of special 
value and beauty, and should make this the standard 
edition wherever illustrations worthy of the story are 
desired. 


Books for Young People — Continued. 

The Voyage of the Avenger: In the Days op the 
Dashing Drake. By Henry St. John. 

Author of “ A Middy of Nelson’s Day,” etc. With twenty- 
five full-page illustrations by Paul Hardy, 
i vol., tall i2mo, cloth decorative, gilt top, 400 pages $1.50 
A book of adventure, the scene of which is laid in that 
stirring period of colonial extension when England’s 
famous naval heroes encountered the ships of Spain, 
both at home and in the West Indies. Mr. St. John 
has given his boy readers a rattling good story of the 
sea. There is plenty of adventure, sufficient in fact to 
keep a boy fixed near the fireside until the last page is 
reached. 


A Child's History of Spain. By Leonard Williams. 
Author of “ Ballads and Songs of Spain,” etc. 

1 vol., small i2mo, with frontispiece, cloth, gilt top $0.75 
Although the recent war with Spain has aroused general 
interest and caused a great demand for literature relating 
to the subject, there has not as yet been published a con- 
densed history of Spain for young people. Mr. Williams’s 
little book will prove a desirable addition to the children’s 
historical library. 

Fairy Folk from Far and Near. By A. C. Woolf, M. A. 
With numerous full-page color illustrations by Hans Reitz. 
1 vol., large i2mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50 

It is long since there has appeared such a thoroughly de- 
lightful volume of fairy tales as that of Annie C. Woolf. 
An added attraction to the book is found in the exquisite 
colored illustrations, the work of Hans Reitz. As a 
Christmas gift-book to children, these tales will be hard 
to excel. 


The Magnet Stories. By Lynde Palmer. 

A new edition ; new binding and larger size volume, 5 vols., 
i2mo. Reduced price. 

Drifting and Steering #1.00 

One Day's Weaving I - 00 

Archie's Shadow 1,00 

John-Jack 100 

Jeannette's Cisterns 1,00 


L. C. Page & Company’s 


Cosy Corner Series 

OF 

Charming Juveniles 


$ 

Each one volume, J6mo, cloth, Illustrated, 50 cents 

S 


Ole Mammy's Torment. By Annie Fellows-Johnston. 
Author of “ The Little Colonel,” etc. 

The Little Colonel. By Annie Fellows-Johnston. 
Author of “ Big Brother.” 

Big Brother. By Annie Fellows-Johnston. 

Author of “ The Little Colonel,” etc. 

The Gate of the Giant Scissors. By Annie Fellows- 
Johnston. 

Author of “ The Little Colonel,” etc. 

Two Little Knights of Kentucky, who were “The Little 
Colonel’s ” neighbors. By Annie Fellows-Johnston. 
A sequel to “ The Little Colonel.” 

The Story of Dago. By Annie Fellows-Johnston. 
Author of “ The Little Colonel,” etc. 

Farmer Brown and the Birds. By Frances Margaret 
Fox. A little story which teaches children that the birds 
are man’s best friends. 


Cosy Comer Series — Continued. 

Story of a Short Life. By Juliana Horatia Ewing. 

This beautiful and pathetic story is a part of the world’s 
literature and will never die. 

Jackanapes. By Juliana Horatia Ewing. 

A new edition, with new illustrations, of this exquisite and 
touching story, dear alike to young and old. 

The Little Lame Prince. By Miss Mulock. 

A delightful story of a little boy who has many adventures 
by means of the magic gifts of his fairy godmother. 

The Adventures of a Brownie. By Miss Mulock. 

The story of a household elf who torments the cook and 

gardener, but is a constant joy and delight to the children. 

His Little Mother. By Miss Mulock. 

Miss Mulock’s short stories for children are a constant 
source of delight to them, and “ His Little Mother,” in 
this new and attractive dress, will be welcomed by hosts 
of readers. 

Little Sunshine's Holiday. By Miss Mulock. 

“Little Sunshine” is another of those beautiful child- 
characters for which Miss Mulock is so justly famous. 

Wee Dorothy. By Laura Updegraff. 

A story of two orphan children, the tender devotion of the 
eldest, a boy, for his sister being its theme. 

Rab and His Friends. By Dr. John Brown. 

Doctor Brown’s little masterpiece is too well known to 
need description. 

The Water People. By Charles Lee Sleight. 

Relating the further adventures of “ Harry,” the little hero 
of “ The Prince of the Pin Elves.” 

The Prince of the Pin Elves. By Chas. Lee Sleight. 

A fascinating story of the underground adventures of a 
sturdy, reliant American boy among the elves and 
gnomes. 

Helena's Wonderworld. By Frances Hodges White. 

A delightful tale of the adventures of a little girl in the 
mysterious regions beneath the sea. 


Cosy Corner Series — Continued. 

For His Country* By Marshall Saunders. 

A beautiful story of a patriotic little American lad. 

A Little Puritan's First Christmas. By Edith Robinson. 

A Little Daughter of Liberty. By Edith Robinson. 

Author of “ A Loyal Little Maid,” “ A Little Puritan 
Rebel,” etc. 

A true story of the Revolution. 

A Little Puritan Rebel. By Edith Robinson. 

An historical tale of a real girl, during the time when the 
gallant Sir Harry Vane was governor of Massachusetts. 

A Loyal Little Maid. By Edith Robinson. 

A delightful and interesting story of Revolutionary days, 
in which the child heroine, Betsey Schuyler, renders im- 
portant services to George Washington and Alexander 
Hamilton. 

A Dog of Flanders. A Christmas Story. By Louise 
de la Ramee (Ouida). 

The Numberg Stove. By Louise de la Ram£e (Ouida). 

This beautiful story has never before been published at a 
popular price. 

The King of the Golden River. A Legend of Stiria. 
By John Ruskin. 

Written fifty years or more ago, this little fairy tale soon 
became known and made a place for itself. 

La Belle Nivernaise. The Story of An Old Boat and 
Her Crew. By Alphonse Daudet. 

It has been out of print for some time, and is now offered 
in cheap but dainty form in this new edition. 

The Young King. The Star Child. 

Two stories chosen from a recent volume by a gifted 
author, on account of their rare beauty, great power, 
and deep significance. 

A Great Emergency. By Mrs. Ewing. 

The Trinity Flower. By Juliana Horatia Ewing. 

In this little volume are collected three of Mrs. Ewing’s 
best short stories for the young people. 

































































































































































































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